Abstract
California’s Central Valley aquifer is a critical freshwater resource for the state, providing drinking water to 6.5 million residents and irrigation water for more than half of the nation’s produce. Increasing demands have led to a steady decline of aquifer water levels, leading to irreversible compaction and land subsidence. The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of California (SGMA), instituted in 2014, requires high-priority regions to establish sustainability plans by 2020–2022 that mitigate groundwater depletion and land subsidence. Many regions within the Central Valley lack groundwater monitoring wells or continuous well data, rendering in situ monitoring challenging. When combined with other data, National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow-On missions provide valuable information about groundwater storage changes at a subbasin scale. Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar measurements can map land subsidence, and Global Positioning System can be used to estimate crustal uplift. Yet, all of these measurements have differences in resolution, coverage, discretization, and record length. Here we assess the various datasets that are potentially useful for Central Valley subbasin groundwater monitoring and provide an analysis of gaps and other issues in regard to their suitability for SGMA-related analysis. Finally, we offer the next steps and recommendations on data treatment and integration.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 664-674 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Journal of the American Water Resources Association |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Oct 2021 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). KHK was supported by an appointment to the NASA Postdoctoral Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, administered by Universities Space Research Association under contract with NASA. MR and HKB were supported by NASA’s GRACE and GRACE‐FO Science Team and Applied Sciences Program. FC, MD, JK, and PS were supported by DEVELOP as part of NASA’s Applied Sciences Program. This research was funded by NASA ROSES Applied Sciences Program awarded to JTR (106502 - 389018.02.10.03.51).[Correction added on 3rd February 2021, after first online publication: Funding source added to Acknowledgements section]. The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). KHK was supported by an appointment to the NASA Postdoctoral Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, administered by Universities Space Research Association under contract with NASA. MR and HKB were supported by NASA’s GRACE and GRACE-FO Science Team and Applied Sciences Program. FC, MD, JK, and PS were supported by DEVELOP as part of NASA’s Applied Sciences Program.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| National Aeronautics and Space Administration | 106502 - 389018.02.10.03.51, 80NM0018D0004 |
| Universities Space Research Association |
