Collaborative Research: New science, tools, and observations to couple geodesy with hydrology for modeling, water storage change, and streamflow forecasting in mountain watersheds

在水资源供应迅速变化的全球背景下，使社区能够更好地预测和管理其水资源的信息对于社会经济可持续性将变得越来越重要。该项目弥合了地球科学和水科学的传统学科界限，产生了关于山区流域水的储存和流动的新知识。世界上的山区降水量很大，是人口和自然生态系统全年重要的淡水来源。估计山区流域内储存的水总量的标准方法涉及空间覆盖范围有限的单点测量或分辨率有限的数百公里范围内的大尺度平均值。地球物理学的最新进展，包括全球导航卫星系统的开发和扩大，该系统可测量地下水和地表水重量引起的地球形状的细微变化，从而改变了研究地球水循环的能力，特别是在与复杂山区流域有关的空间和时间尺度上。通过精确观测和模拟由于山区积雪和水储存波动而造成的厘米级地球变形，该项目旨在对流域尺度的水文模型施加新的限制，为水资源管理创建更好的业务工具，并开发一个原型水文预警系统，可以提醒下游社区洪水风险或突发干旱。此外，演示的能力，使水存储在个别流域使用几个廉价的GNSS传感器的估计可能会改变的方式，淡水资源通常测量和managed.This项目相结合的实地考察，数据分析和建模，调查三个水文不同的山区流域在美国西部。将在所有三个流域收集关于地壳位移、径流、雪深、降水和大气状况的高分辨率（空间和时间）观测数据。研究产品将包括：（1）将GNSS推断的地表位移与水文参数（如径流和含水层补给）相关联的经验校准;（2）数值工具，用于对由于非均匀地球上的非均匀负载而引起的三维地表位移进行正演建模，并用于反演建模以计算流域内的水储存变化;（3）耦合的大地测量和水文模型，其包括固体地球变形、水储存、地表径流和地下水流之间的临界反馈;以及（4）水文预报的试点业务产品。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In a global context of rapidly changing water availability, information that allows communities to better predict and manage their water resources will become ever more critical to socioeconomic sustainability. This project bridges traditional disciplinary boundaries in Earth and water sciences to generate new knowledge about the storage and flow of water through mountain watersheds. Mountainous regions of the world receive extensive precipitation and serve as crucial year-round sources of freshwater for human populations and natural ecosystems. Standard methods for estimating the total amount of water stored within mountain watersheds involve single-point measurements with limited spatial coverage or large-scale averages over hundreds of kilometers with limited resolution. Recent advances in geophysics, including the development and expansion of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that measure subtle changes in the shape of the Earth caused by the weight of groundwater and surface water, have transformed the ability to study Earth’s water cycle, especially at space and time scales that are relevant to complex mountain watersheds. By precisely observing and modeling the centimeter-scale deformation of Earth due to fluctuations in mountain snow and water storage, this project aims to place new constraints on hydrologic models at the watershed scale, create enhanced operational tools for water-resource management, and develop a prototype hydrologic early-warning system that can alert downstream communities to flood risk or flash droughts. Furthermore, demonstrating the capability to make estimates of water storage at individual watersheds using a few inexpensive GNSS sensors could change the way that freshwater resources are typically measured and managed.This project combines fieldwork, data analysis, and modeling to investigate three hydrologically distinct mountain watersheds in the western USA. High-resolution (in space and time) observations of crustal displacement, streamflow, snow depth, precipitation, and atmospheric conditions will be collected in all three watersheds. Research products will include: (1) empirical calibrations that relate GNSS-inferred surface displacements to hydrologic parameters such as streamflow and aquifer recharge; (2) numerical tools for forward modeling of three-dimensional surface displacements due to heterogeneous loads on a heterogeneous Earth and for inverse modeling to calculate variations in water storage within the watershed; (3) coupled geodetic and hydrologic models that incorporate critical feedbacks between solid-Earth deformation, water storage, surface runoff, and groundwater flow; and (4) a pilot operational product for hydrologic forecasting.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.