NASA Contributions to Global Drought Monitoring David Toll

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NASA Contributions to Global Drought Monitoring
David Toll NASA Water Resources Hydrological
Sciences NASA/GSFC Brad Doorn NASA Water
Resources Program Manager NASA Applied Sciences
Program Jared Entin NASA Terrestrial Hydrology
Program Manager Edwin Engman NASA Water Resources
Consultant/SAIC Richard Lawford NASA Water
Resources Consultant/UMBC 11 April 2011 NASA
Drought Workshop Dave.toll_at_nasa.gov
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NASA Water Resources Program Drought

• Drought FAO estimates that by 2025 two-thirds
  of the world population will be living under
  water stress conditions from climate change,
  population increases and increases in water use.
• NASA remote sensing modeling Combined with
  and other Earth science data for global drought
  monitoring using satellite and modeling,
  including water for food, improved water
  management, and water availability for
  ecosystems.
• Integrated system addressing meteorological
  (e.g., precipitation), hydrological (e.g.,
  streamflow, snowpack, ground water), agricultural
  (e.g., soil moisture), ecological (e.g.,
  vegetation stress) drought.
• NASA Water Resources has had a strong focus on
  drought applications the last five years
• - Nghiem (JPL) Verdin (USGS) Remote Sensing
  for USDM vegetation indices soil moisture
  change)
• - Rodell (NASA/GSFC) Terrestrial Water Storage
  Ground Water (Using GRACE )to USDM NADM
• - Cai (U. Illinois) Developing Seasonal
  Predictive Capability for Drought Decision
  Support
• - Koster (NASA/GSFC) Development of Robust
  Drought Index for Agricultural Applications
• - Verdin (USGS) A Land Data Assimilation System
  for Famine Early Warning
• - Linked support for NOAA/NASA North American
  LDAS Drought Monitoring

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NASA USDM DROUGHT Accomplishments

• NASA Funding Several Projects to Support US
  Drought Monitor
• Expedited MODIS Vegetation Drought Response Index
  (VegDRI) Soil Moisture Change USGS/EROS and
  NDMC have integrated MODIS into the national
  VegDRI model on a rapid, weekly schedule. JPL
  automated a procedure to provide Soil Moisture
  Change updated projects.
• Prototype Terrestrial Water Storage (TWS) Using
  GRACE Satellite Data GSFC and NDMC working to
  provide GRACE TWS data assimilated in to land
  surface models for a new key drought indicator
  including deep soil moisture and ground water.
• Resolution Benchmark NASA results have excellent
  resolutions to resolve the county-level goal of
  NIDIS. This is evident in the comparison of SMC,
  TWS and VegDRI products versus USDM drought maps
  at the higher resolution.
• Improvements of USDM are important for users
  NOAA NWS uses D2 to trigger drought information
  statements, IRS for tax deferrals, USDA
  programmatic usage, and Livestock Forage Disaster
  Program disbursement (147,109,381 in 2008, and
  77,608,125 in 2009).

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MODIS System Characteristics for Inputs to US
Drought Monitor PI J. Verdin (USGS)
Product Characteristics
Historic
Expedited
Aqua and Terra MODIS
Instruments
Continental U.S. (CONUS)
Extent
250, 500, and 1000 meters
Spatial Resolutions
lt 30 days after last input
1 day after last input
Product Latency
Indefinitely
90 days
Archive Persistence
7-day, Interval
7-day, Rolling
Composite Period
Example eMODIS product Terra MODIS 1000m NDVI
CONUS composite for August 2-8, 2006
NDVI, Surface Refl. Bands, Quality, Acq. Date
Layers
Lambert Equal Area Azimuthal / GeoTIFF
Projection/Format
Processing Flow
Expedited L1B (NOAA NRT)
Long Term Archive and Web-enabled Access
Cloud Mask Processing (MODIS PGE 03)
Surface Refl. Processing (MODIS PGE 11)
Historic L1B (NASA LAADS)
Composite Processing (NDVI, CONUS)
Ancillary Data
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The Famine Early Warning Systems Network
(FEWS-NET)

• Using NASA Land Information System (LIS) to Help
  Extend Coverage beyond Sub-Sahara
• Satellite Precipitation
• Satellite Vegetation Greenness
• Biomass Yield Forecasting
• Satellite Snow Cover and Snow Water Equivalent

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Integrating Enhanced GRACE Water Storage
(Including Ground Water ) towards Global
Assessments
Model assimilated water storage, mm January
December 2005 Loop
GRACE water storage, mm January December 2005
Loop
Rodell
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Multi Model Drought Model Comparison for Use in
Global Monitoring Systems
? Soil moisture percentiles from each Land
Surface Model combined to form ensemble mean. ?
Project will eventually use multiple land surface
models (Mosaic, Noah, VIC, Sacramento, CLM3,
HySSiB, and Catchment). ? Ensemble model
outputs often offer more accurate depictions of
drought ? Even poor depictions are
informative--Large model spread indicates lack of
confidence ? Indices of Met drought (NCDC PDSI),
Met drought-II (NCDC PHDI), Ag drought (Palmer Z)
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Seasonal Root Zone Predictions (Applicable
Globally) Useful for Rain-fed Agriculture
Production
Initial conditions (Dec. 1, 2008)
1-month lead (Jan. 1, 2009)
Root zone soil moisture anomaly (expressed as
standard normal deviate)
3-month lead (Mar. 1, 2009)
2-month lead (Feb. 1, 2009)
Drought conditions given a probability to persist
into early March.
Project Development of a Robust Drought Index
for Agricultural Applications. PI R. Koster,
NASA/GSFC
http//gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/forecasts/
http//www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/fews/
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Middle East North Africa (MENA) NASA Water
Information System Platforms (WISPs) for Water
Management Joint Activity between NASA, the World
Blank and USAID (with support from USDA and
Universities)

• NASA, USAID, and the International Center for
  Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) have partnered to
  provide a regional (1/8o) Land Data Assimilation
  System of the MENA using remote sensing to
  address water management issues.
• The World Bank through the Global Environment
  Fund (GEF) and USAID is funding NASA to install
  Water Information System Platforms throughout the
  MENA (centers Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Lebanon
  Egypt) for country and regional (basin) use.
• NASA Water Information System Platform Tools
• - Regional (1/8o) to Local (1km and finer) water
  availability maps.
• - Monitoring prediction of drought processes.
• - Flood warning inundation mapping .
• - Climate and land use change impacts on water
  resources.
• - Estimates of crop yield, irrigation mapping
  and land cover change.
• Satellite data to estimate evapotranspiration
  and the consumptive water loss.
• Estimation of changes to ground water and
  terrestrial water storage changes using GRACE
  satellite data.

Figure 1. Precipitation (mm/month) for July 2007
at 0.04 resolution, from the UC Irvine
PERSIANN-GCCS system. Hourly, near-real time
data from PERSIANN will be a primary input to the
MENA LDAS.
Figure 2. Seasonal variations in
evapotranspiration (mm/month) over the MENA
region, output from MENA LDAS. Top December 2002
- February 2003 average. Bottom June 2003 -
August 2003 average. (Contact D. Toll and J.
Bolten NASA)
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NASA Water Resources Drought Related Activities
World Bank, USAID NASA Water Information
System Platforms (WISPs) Installing in the MENA
with Drought Monitoring as a Major Component for
Jordan, Morocco, Lebanon Egypt. - MENA
Regional Center on Water (Obamas June 2009
Pledge on Scientific Centers) - Highlighted in
World Bank and US Government MOU, Cooperation
Relating to Water Coordinate and Leverage
Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Drought
Activities, including Continental Drought,
Drought Clearinghouse NIDIS subtask.
FEWS-NET SERVIR Plans for drought monitoring
in East Africa SERVIR node. UNESCO NASA
Working with UNESCO IHP (Princeton U. and
FEWS-NET) for African Drought Monitor
LIS-AFWA Air Force Weather Agency replacing
their AGHRMET hydrology-meteorology with NASA
Land Information System Science Technology
to Aid the World USAID and NASA MoU for April
25, 2011. ICIWaRM (International Center for
Integrated Water Resources Management) UNESCO
Category II Water Center Activities include
G-WADI for semi-arid to arid ecosystems of the
world. USAID Global Water for Food at
University of Nebraska Lincoln. Global Water
Solutions Center (GWSC) - NGO with State
Department to address world's critical freshwater
issues.