The Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission will provide a trove of data on Earth’s water resources, even in remote locations. Alaska serves as a case study. While Alaska straddles the Arctic Circle and is covered by vast expanses of frozen land, the state also has a lot of liquid water. In fa
and the French space agency Centre National d’Études Spatiales , with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency and the UK Space Agency.
Alaska’s sheer size, rugged terrain, and limited transportation infrastructure make traditional stream gauging cost prohibitive. While streamflows in most of the United States are continuously monitored by a U.S. Geological Survey network of more than 8,500 stations, there are currently only 113 gauges in Alaska, and many big rivers aren’t monitored.
USGS is compiling a historical record of estimated stream discharges, building on more than two decades of NASA research to measure water surface levels in lakes and rivers. The data will allow scientists and water managers to understand how often streams experience low- and high-flow conditions and to develop a reference point to evaluate current conditions.
SWOT will also measure a river’s slope, which provides scientists a means to estimate how fast water is running off the landscape. Generally speaking, the steeper the slope, the faster the water.
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