ESSIC Assistant Research Scientist Bailing Li is the lead author on two recent publications in Scientific Reports and Water Resources Research, titled “Long-term, non-anthropogenic groundwater storage changes simulated by three global-scale hydrological models” and “Global GRACE Data Assimilation for Groundwater and Drought Monitoring: Advances and Challenges”, respectively.
The first paper studies the long term trend of global groundwater. Groundwater storage was estimated by three hydrological models driven by three 50+ year meteorological datasets. Results indicate that non-anthropogenic variability in groundwater storage is substantial, and that this knowledge is fundamental to quantifying direct human impacts on groundwater storage. To read this piece in full, click here.
The second publication is on global GRACE data assimilation to support groundwater and drought monitoring. For this paper, the researchers assimilated a state‐of‐the‐art terrestrial water storage product derived from Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite observations into NASA’s Catchment land surface model. This was done with the goal of generating physical-based groundwater storage time series useful for drought monitoring and other applications. To read this piece, click here.
