GRACE-FO Mission "EMPOWER IAS"

In news:

• NASA releases new global maps mapping groundwater, soil wetness using GRACE-FO satellites.

 

About GRACE- FO mission:

• The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-on (GRACE-FO) mission is a partnership between NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ).
• GRACE-FO is a successor to the original GRACE mission, which began orbiting Earth on March 17, 2002. The GRACE missions measure variations in gravity over Earth’s surface, producing a new map of the gravity field every 30 days
• GRACE-FO will continue the work of tracking Earth’s water movement to monitor changes in underground water storage, the amount of water in large lakes and rivers, soil moisture, ice sheets and glaciers, and sea level caused by the addition of water to the ocean.
• These discoveries provide a unique view of Earth’s climate and have far-reaching benefits to society and the world’s population.

 

Why need such data on groundwater and soil moisture?

• Groundwater and soil moisture — which depicts wetness in soil — are crucial for irrigation and crop growth.
• The need to constantly monitor groundwater and soil moisture is important since both act as useful indicators for predicting drought conditions.
• One of the goals of the new global maps is to make the same consistent product available in all parts of the world, especially in countries that do not have any groundwater-monitoring infrastructure.
• The data would help in managing the selection of appropriate agricultural crops and predicting yields.