IGCP 565 Project Workshops

IGCP 565 Workshop 5: Water Security for Africa: Bringing Together Research, Monitoring, and Managing October 29-30, 2012 Johannesburg, South Africa

Hydrogeodesy: Can it help to reach the Millennium Development Goal for Water in Africa?

Norman Miller
Earth Sciences Division, Berkeley National Laboratory, Department of Geography, University of California at Berkeley

One of the Millennium Development Goals is to halve the number of people lacking adequate drinking water by 2015. This goal is not being met in many parts of Africa due to an insufficient level of infrastructure and governance needed to bring drinking water to local communities. This problem is amplified by drought and overuse in one region at the loss of water in another. Water resource monitoring represents a means toward providing decision-makers improved information on water supplies. Groundwater supply is a primary source for freshwater in many parts of Africa, especially during dry periods. Recent advances in hydrogeodesy have led toward to the application of remote sensed gravity change as a means to monitor changes in groundwater availability. This presentation will highlight the use of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite data as applied to land surface models as a step toward meeting this Millennium Development Goal.