GRACE-GWS and RIMAS-SGB water level correlation at the northern portion of the Paraná Basin

• Grant number: 24/14862-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: October 01, 2024
• End date: September 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Geosciences - Geophysics
• Principal Investigator: Carlos Alberto Mendonça
• Grantee: Dandara Saraiva Bezerra
• Host Institution: Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas (IAG). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 21/11762-5 - Centre for Water and Food Security in Critical Zones, AP.CCD

Abstract

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites, as well as the GRACE Following On (GRACIE-FO) missions, have previously shown success in the literature in representing the redistribution of water on Earth through the temporal variation of its gravitational field. In the study of groundwater, which mostly aims to understand the behavior of water recharge in aquifers, the variation data of the total water storage on Earth (TWS) determined by GRACE, can be useful to determine the variation of the water level in aquifers (GWS) and then determine a distance monitoring system for a resource of extreme importance to society. However, it is necessary to understand the dynamics of the water balance of the research region, since to quantify the GWS it is necessary to determine the water storage in other spheres of the Earth system, such as the portion present in the soil and on the surface.Thereby, with two databases that temporally analyze the behavior of these variations of water levels - one remotely with the use of satellites and the other from the monitoring of the water level in underground wells of the Integrated Groundwater Monitoring Network, respectively, GRACE and RIMAS-SGB - this project aims to identify the compatibility of the changes in underground recharge of the Bauru and Guarani aquifers since 2010 with this diverse database. And then, observe whether the variation of water resources in the regions of aquifer recharge and discharge indicate similar or distinct correlation patterns among them.