article · Water Resources Research
Hydrogeodesy uses tools like altimetry, satellite radar, gravimetry, and navigation systems to monitor changes in the Earth's surfaces and gravity field, complementing standard hydrological observations. A meta-analysis of over 3,000 publications alongside an expert elicitation shows rapid technical progress in measuring precision and hydrological modelling. However, fewer studies address direct water management, broader sustainability issues, or fundamental hydrological processes. Geodetic observation is currently concentrated on lakes, groundwater, and glaciers, whereas permafrost and wetlands remain under-researched. Experts emphasise that hydrogeodesy can assist in resolving major unresolved scientific questions in hydrology and support planetary sustainability. Realising this capability requires integrating multiple sensor technologies at once, adopting artificial intelligence, linking with other Earth sciences, and embedding hydrogeodesy into university curricula.
Accelerating climate and human pressures threaten global water security. Hydrogeodetic satellite tools can measure changes in lakes, groundwater, and ice from space, offering a continuous picture of freshwater systems. Expanding these methods to fragile environments like wetlands, and connecting technical measurements to practical resource management, provides the vital evidence base needed to protect water supplies and guide sustainable policy decisions.
The abstract highlights monitoring capabilities using altimetry, InSAR, gravimetry, and GNSS, combined with artificial intelligence, for tracking water bodies and groundwater. Potential users include water resource managers, environmental monitoring organisations, and sustainability bodies. However, this work reflects early-stage analytical research based on a meta-analysis and expert elicitation, with operational water management applications currently limited by a gap between technical methodology and real-world deployment.
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Abstract Increasing climatic and human pressures are changing the world's water resources and hydrological processes at unprecedented rates. Understanding these changes requires comprehensive monitoring of water resources. Hydrogeodesy, the science that measures the Earth's solid and aquatic surfaces, gravity field, and their changes over time, delivers a range of novel monitoring tools that are complementary to traditional hydrological methods. It encompasses geodetic technologies such as Altimetry, Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR), Gravimetry, and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). Beyond quantifying these changes, there is a need to understand how hydrogeodesy can contribute to more ambitious goals dealing with water‐related and sustainability sciences. Addressing this need, we combine a meta‐analysis of over 3,000 articles to chart the range, trends, and applications of satellite‐based hydrogeodesy with an expert elicitation that systematically assesses the potential of hydrogeodesy. We find a growing body of literature relating to the advancements in hydrogeodetic methods, their accuracy and precision, and their inclusion in hydrological modeling, with a considerably smaller portion related to understanding hydrological processes, water management, and sustainability sciences. The meta‐analysis also shows that while lakes, groundwater and glaciers are commonly monitored by these technologies, wetlands or permafrost could benefit from a wider range of applications. In turn, the expert elicitation envisages the potential of hydrogeodesy to help solve the 23 Unsolved Questions of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences and advance knowledge as guidance toward a safe operating space for humanity. It also highlights how this potential can be maximized by combining hydrogeodetic technologies simultaneously, exploiting artificial intelligence, and accurately integrating other Earth science disciplines. Finally, we call for a coordinated way forward to include hydrogeodesy in tertiary education and broaden its application to water‐related and sustainability sciences in order to exploit its full potential.
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DOI: 10.1029/2023wr037020
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