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* Flash movie courtesy of Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (PSIPW)
Overview
The Water Resources project office supports the NASA Applied Sciences Program through several national and international collaborations. This page summarizes those activities.
- Capacity Building in Water Management
- Hydrology for Environment, Life, and Policy (HELP)
- Advisory Committee on Water Information: Subcommittee on Hydrology (ACWI-SOH)
- Partnerships for Maghreb Water Management
- NASA Energy and Water cycle Study (NEWS)
Collaborations
- Capacity Building in Water Management
- SALDAS SALDAS is the South American version of the NASA Land Data Assimilation Systems ( LDAS ) which has well known applications to North America (NLDAS) and global models ( GLDAS ).
- SERVIR SERVIR is the Mesoamerican Regional Visualization and Monitoring System. The development of SERVIR is partially funded by the NASA Applied Sciences theme of Ecological Forecasting .
- Integrated Global Water Cycle Observations (IGWCO) The overall objective of IGWCO is to provide a framework for coorinating the diverse observations from the land surface, subsurface, atmosphere and the ocean that are available through space agencies, resource agencies and weather services and to faciliatate the use of these diverse data products in an inter-operational system of data processing, assimilation, prediction and decision support systems. NASA supports the IGWCO theme and the Water Management Project Office gave a presentation at a IGWCO workshop (19 page pdf file) sponsored by GEWEX in March 2007.
- Group on Earth Observations (GEO) The international Group on Earth Observations is working to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems, and has developed a GEOSS 10-year implementation plan (11 page pdf file). The GEO Capacity Building Committee supports GEO in the use of Earth observation data and products in a sustainable manner, particularly in developing countries. The GEO capacity building strategy follows the concept of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) sponsored by the United Nations in Johannesburg 2002. The concept is a global partnership betweeen those whose capacity needs development and those who are able to assist in the process, recognizing that activities have intertwined social, environmental, and economic impacts.
- Hydrology for Environment, Life, and Policy (HELP)
- Advisory Committee on Water Information: Subcommittee on Hydrology (ACWI-SOH)
- Partnerships for Maghreb Water Management
- NASA Energy and Water Cycle Study (NEWS)
Participants: D. Toll (NASA/GSFC), E. Engman (NASA/GSFC/SAIC), L. de Goncalves (NASA/GSFC/ORAU), D. Herring (NASA/GSFC), V. Lakshmi (U. South Carolina), and E. Berbery (UM-CP)
The NASA Applied Sciences Program plans to initiate a series of capacity building programs to develop tools for using remote sensing data in support of water management, and to show the value of Earth observations generally in water resource management. The program will be initiated in Latin America and will then be extended to Asia and Africa.
Current partnerships in water capacity building:
NASA Participants: Edwin Engman (NASA/GSFC/SAIC) is the North American Coordinator to HELP
Hydrology for Environment, Life, and Policy (HELP) is a joint initiative of the United Nations Educational Scientific Organization ( UNESCO ) and the World Meteorological Organization ( WMO ). HELP was established in 1999 to bring water managers, decision makers, stakeholders, scientists, and academicians together to determine needs and find solutions to water management issues through a "bottom-up" approach.
Ted Engman provided coordination to the North America Region of HELP and coordinated a session for the 4th World Water Forum held in Mexico City March 16-22, 2006. HELP is currently discussing activities for a basins study, including "twinning activities" in both North and South America. Periodic teleconferences with the HELP basins members are held to learn of recent activities and to exchange information.
NASA Participants: Edwin Engman (NASA/GSFC/SAIC)
NASA solicited and received membership to the U.S. inter-agency Advisory Committee on Water Information ( ACWI ) Subcommittee on Hydrology ( SOH ). ACWI-SOH is closely related to the Sustainable Water Resources Roundtable group.
ACWI is paired with the Water Information Coordination Program (WICP). They are both collaborative efforts of US Federal agencies that were mandated by the office of Managment and Budget (OMB). ACWI-SOH considers all aspects of surface water availability, with the objective to improve the information needed for hazard mitigation, environmental protection, and water management. More information is available in the latest SOH newsletter .
The Water Management Project Office gave a presentation at an ACWI meeting (16.6 MB 46 page ppt file) in January 2007.
US Participants: Edwin. T. Engman (NASA/GSFC/SAIC), and Bob Senseney (US Department of State)
In 1995, the World Bank classified the Maghreb region of North Africa as one of the poorest regions in the world in terms of renewable natural water resources. Since then, several scientific and political meetings have addressed this growing crisis. Maghreb means "Western" in Arabic and the region encompasses the current African nations of Mauretania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya.
The US Department of State is networking with other US and international agencies to develop water management programs for the Maghreb. One effort is a Groundwater Management proposal for Morocco developed by the Dept of State, NASA, and the US Geological Survey ( USGS ) to be submitted to United States Agency for International Development ( USAID ) for possible funding. Another effort is the planning of a a Disaster Mitigation Workshop for the Maghreb countries of North Africa, to be held in coordination with the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA ) and the US Geological Survey ( USGS ). This proposed workshop would be a contribution to the State Department's Science and Technology Exchange program.
This work is being coordinated through the NASA Office of Science Utilization, under Shahid Habib, PHD, PE
NASA Participants: Paul Houser (GMU/IGES/CREW), Robert Schiffer (UMBC), Eni Njoku (NASA/JPL), Adam Schlosser (MIT), Bing Lin (NASA/LaRC), Bill Rossow (NASA/GSFC-GISS), Bill Lapenta (NASA/MSFC), and Jared Entin (NASA/HQ).
* Click on image to expand
The cycling of energy and water has obvious and significant implications for the health and prosperity of society. NASA Energy and Water Cycle Study (NEWS) is envisioned to be part of the broader NASA end-to-end Earth science program. The overall program thus includes the transition of research findings and new capabilities to academic/public education and to practical applications, through partnerships with the academic community-at-large, federal agencies that oversee environmental protection and operational applications, and eventually private sector operators.
The ultimate goal of NEWS is a breakthrough improvement in the nation's energy and water cycle prediction capability. NEWS is expected to demonstrate advanced global observation, data assimilation, and improved representation of physical processes in climate models, better prediction systems that can be used to quantify the hydrologic consequences of climate change and produce useful seasonal and longer-range hydrologic predictions based on observed initial values and changing boundary conditions.
A NEWS Science Integration Team (NSIT) has been established by the NASA Associate Administrator to serve and enable the integration of NASA science activities with other NEWS investigations and other NASA research foci and activities. The NSIT will serve as an interface to NASA system components, and to coordinate and integrate the results of the NEWS product- and discovery-driven investigations to provide a pathway for the results of NEWS investigations to be implemented and retained as NASA system components. The NSIT will develop and provide shared NEWS services such as information technology, communication, and planning that will be designed to enhance cross-project collaboration and integration. The current members of the NSIT are: Robert Schiffer (UMBC), Eni Njoku (NASA-JPL), Adam Schlosser (MIT), Bing Lin (NASA-LaRC), Bill Rossow (NASA-GSFC-GISS), Bill Lapenta (NASA-MSFC), Paul Houser (GMU-CREW), and Jared Entin (NASA-HQ). Paul Houser serves at the NEWS project scientist, and Jared Entin serves as the NEWS project manager.
The NEWS team has two integration projects in formulation:
