Our overall goal is to produce esdrs of suitable quality to support long-term trend analysis (hence, climate data records, or cdrs) for the longest length possible (in most cases, about 20 years,…

This federal contract award, with ID NNX15AH05A, was issued by the Shared Services Center, a civilian agency, to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as the prime contractor. The $3,209,408.52 cooperative agreement was awarded on June 11, 2015 with a completion date of June 10, 2020.

The purpose of this contract is to produce "Earth System Data Records (ESDRs) of suitable quality to support long-term trend analysis (hence, Climate Data Records, or CDRs) for the longest length possible" of key surface water storage and flux measurements. This includes producing pre-SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) data records for large reservoirs, lakes, and rivers, as well as model-based estimates of these parameters. The goal is to provide baseline geophysical data that can be used to support upcoming NASA Earth science missions like SWOT. This contract has no set-aside designation.

Our overall goal is to produce esdrs of suitable quality to support long-term trend analysis (hence, climate data records, or cdrs) for the longest length possible (in most cases, about 20 years, the length of the altimetry record) of key measures of surface water storages and fluxes. While we recognize that current altimeters are constrained for the reasons noted above, and that swot will greatly relax many of the constraints, we argue (and the NRA implies) that there will be great value in the swot ERA to having quality controlled records of those aspects of the surface water cycle that swot will measure for which records can be established back to the beginning of the satellite ERA. In this respect, we are responding directly to language in the call that NASA is currently developing new missions to be launched in this decade. Records that provide precursor products that begin to baseline geophysical parameters that will be produced from these satellites would be valuable to NASA s earth science research strategy.we also intend to produce model-based estimates of surface water storage (in lakes, reservoirs, and river channels) and fluxes (runoff and streamflow) from the mid-20TH century to present. We recognize that these estimates will inevitably be of lower quality than direct (satellite-based) observations. However, they can a) be compared with the altimetry-based estimates for large lakes and reservoirs during the altimetry ERA, and b) will eventually be extendable for smaller lakes and reservoirs via direct observations during the swot ERA, hence providing some basis for determining errors for smaller water bodies. Our specific objectives are: a) produce pre-swot data records of reservoir, large lake, and river storage change for as many of the largest global reservoirs and lakes as possible, based on data from all available altimeter data to date, as well as modis and/or other imagery for surface extent (nominal monthly time intervals); b) produce pre-swot data records of large river heights, slopes, and widths for as many of the world s largest rivers as possible based on data from all available altimeters to date, and modis and/or other imagery for river widths (nominal monthly time intervals); c) produce model-based estimates of reservoir, large lake, and river storage change for an augmented site list including the sites in a) and model-based estimates of river discharge for an augmented list including the sites in b).