Analysis of water level variations in Brazilian basins using GRACE

A Matos,A Barbosa,S Costa,F Almeida,D Blitzkow,I Campos

doi:10.2478/v10156-011-0034-7

Abstract

Analysis of water level variations in Brazilian basins using GRACEA comparison between daily in-situ water level time series measured at ground-based hydrometric stations (HS - 1,899 stations located in twelve Brazilian basins) of the Agência Nacional de Águas (ANA) with vertically-integrated water height anomaly deduced from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) geoid is carried out in Brazil. The equivalent water height (EWH) of 10-day intervals of GRACE models were computed by GRGS/CNES. It is a 6-year analysis (July-2002 to May-2008). The coefficient of determination is computed between the ANA water level and GRACE EWH. Values higher than 0.6 were detected in the following basins: Amazon, north of Paraguay, Tocantins-Araguaia, Western North-East Atlantic and north of the Parnaíba. In the Uruguay (Pampas region) and the west of São Francisco basins, the coefficient of determination is around 0.5 and 0.6. These results were adjusted with a linear transfer function and two second degree polynomials (flood and ebb period) between GRACE EWH and ANA water level. The behavior of these two polynomials is related to the phase difference of the two time series and yielded four different types of responses. This paper shows seven ANA stations that represent these responses and relates them with their hydro-geological domain.

Highlights

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission was launched in March 2002 as a joint venture between NASA (USA) and DLR (Germany)
A comparison between daily in-situ water level time series measured at ground-based hydrometric stations (HS – 1,899 stations located in twelve Brazilian basins) of the Agência Nacional de Águas (ANA) with vertically-integrated water height anomaly deduced from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) geoid is carried out in Brazil
This paper shows GRACE equivalent water height (EWH) overall response of all active stations controlled by ANA in Brazil

Summary

Introduction

The GRACE mission was launched in March 2002 as a joint venture between NASA (USA) and DLR (Germany). Since its launch, it has provided a global mapping of the time-variations of the Earth’s gravitational eld, on an ongoing basis. The annual component of these time-variations over land is mainly due to changes in inland water storage related to climate variability and anthropogenic factors. Several previous studies demonstrated the GRACE satellite mission’s ability for the measure of hydrologic dynamics using different approaches. Ramillien et al (2011) worked on a model using the energy integral approach applied to continental hydrology. Da Silva (2012) found high-quality results in a comparison between GRACE hydrologic data and the Earth-observing satellite ENVISAT (”Environmental Satellite”)

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