Surface water stored in and transported through rivers, lakes, and wetlands is a key component of the global water cycle, and IT is the primary source of human water use in much of the world,…

This is a cooperative agreement awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Shared Services Center to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The agreement is focused on developing a network of citizen scientists to monitor lake water storage levels by combining on-the-ground measurements of lake stage with satellite-derived measurements of lake area. The goal is to build a global database of lake water storage variations that can help validate future measurements from the upcoming NASA/CNES Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission. The agreement has a potential value of $1,485,302.35 and was awarded on June 25, 2018, with a completion date of June 24, 2022. No set-aside designation was indicated for this award.

Surface water stored in and transported through rivers, lakes, and wetlands is a key component of the global water cycle, and IT is the primary source of human water use in much of the world, including the united states. Because of its importance to human and natural systems, governments around the world have developed substantial networks of river and stream gauges to track the flow of water across the land surface. Surprisingly, no similar network exists for the millions of lakes worldwide, despite the fact that monitoring lake water level (or stage) is often remarkably easy on the ground. Simple measurements can be made using an inexpensive staff gauge, when properly installed. As such, developing a network of citizen scientists to monitor lake stage around the world is an achievable goal. By itself, lake stage provides useful information. If lake stage is combined with measurements of lake area, however, IT is possible to monitor variations in lake water storage, a key term for understanding water resource availability and the water cycle as a whole. Over the last two decades, measurement of lake area using NASA instruments including the landsat suite, modis, and aster have been widely demonstrated. Additionally, the upcoming NASA/cnes surface water and ocean topography (swot) mission, for the first time, will provide simultaneous measurements of water surface elevation and inundation extent from space, which will allow measurement of water storage change directly. In the prototype phase, we have combined measurements of lake stage from citizen scientists with lake area derived from NASA and ESA optical satellite imagery to measure lake water storage variations in eleven ecologically and hydrologically important lakes in eastern north carolina lakes. We organized a robust citizen science program with 76 participants who have made more than 700 measurements of lake stage so far. We developed new software to receive, process, and distribute citizen-collected lake stage data via web APP and SMS/text. To calculate variations in storage, we combined the citizen-collected stage data with lake area measurements automatically derived from landsat and sentinel 2 imagery. We use the stage and storage measurements to demonstrate that there are significant differences in lake storage time series within eastern north carolina, suggesting that lake storage in the region is primarily controlled by local factors. In the implementation phase, we will leverage the expertise, software, standards, and training materials developed during the prototype phase to develop a robust, globally-accessible network for measuring lake water storage variations. We will focus our work primarily on two to three regions per year where the resulting datasets will allow US to address our primary science question: at what spatial scales do processes controlling water storage in lakes vary? We will focus on wisconsin, bangladesh, and washington in year 1; the pyrenees, minnesota, and india in year 2; and pakistan and new england in year 3. In each region, we will leverage existing relationships, work with local collaborators, and seek to develop sustainable partnerships. We will rigorously assess the quality of the resulting datasets and their suitability to help validate future measurements of lake water storage variation from the swot satellite mission.