Abstract
Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites were launched on March 17 2002 to derive with unprecedented accuracy, estimates of the global high resolution model of the earth’s gravity field. Local gravity changes with change in mass or mass redistribution. The mass changes can be due to hydrological events, seismic events or postglacial rebound, majorly. GRACE is sensitive to changes at large spatial scale since the resolution of GRACE is 400 km. Hydrological activities over basins provide sufficient mass changes to be detected by GRACE. In this research paper the discussion would be about two major flooding events in India, one being the 2005 monsoon flooding in Mumbai and nearby states and other being flood experienced by Bihar in 2008. The GRACE data is in the form of matrix consisting spherical harmonic coefficients. These coefficients are processed to obtain mass changes in terms of equivalent water height at a spatial scale of 400 km. The strategy of analysis is also discussed which need to be followed depending upon limitations of GRACE observation and requirement of application, here in this case application is flood induced mass change detection. Time-series and residual plots are generated and they show the flooding events for the concerned area as outliers. Better visualisation is obtained by residual plot, if there is a trend or systematic behaviour in time-series. This work points towards the qualitative capability of GRACE to detect flooding events at large spatial scale. Quantitative analysis requires in-situ data over the period of GRACE which is not possible for the cases discussed here.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baur, O., & Sneeuw, N. (2011). Assessing greenland ice mass loss by means of point-mass modeling: A viable methodology. Journal of geodesy. doi:10.1007/s00190-011-0463-1.
Dartmouth flood observatory flood archive 2005, URL http://www.dartmouth.edu/~floods/Archives/2005sum.htm
Dartmouth flood observatory flood archive 2008, URL http://www.dartmouth.edu/~floods/Archives/2008sum.htm
Rodell, M., Famiglietti, J. S., & Velicogna, I. (2009). Satellite-based estimates of groundwater depletion in india. Nature. doi:10.1038/nature08238.
Seitz, F., Schmidt, M., & Shum, C. K. (2008). Signals of extreme weather conditions in Central Europe in GRACE 4-D hydrological mass variations. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 268, 165–170. doi:10.1016/j.espl.2008.01.001.
Tapley, B. D., & Bettadpur, S. (2004). The gravity recovery and climate experiment: mission overview and early results. American Geophysical Union
Wahr, J., Velicogna, I., & Swenson, S. (2006). Accuracy of GRACE mass estimates. Ge, 33. doi: 10.1029/2005GL025305.
Wahr, J., & Molenaar, M. (1998). Time variability of the earth’s gravity field: hydrological and oceanic effects and their possible detection using GRACE. Geophysical Research letters, (98JB02844)
Wahr, J., & Swenson, S. (2004). Time-variable gravity from GRACE: First results. Geophysical Research letters, 31. doi:10.1029/2004GL019779.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
About this article
Cite this article
dutt Vishwakarma, B., Jain, K., Sneeuw, N. et al. Mumbai 2005, Bihar 2008 Flood Reflected in Mass Changes Seen by GRACE Satellites. J Indian Soc Remote Sens 41, 687–695 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-012-0256-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12524-012-0256-x