28 Dec., 2006
Water Management Progress Report
Quarterly Update
Sept-Dec. 2006
1.0 PROGRAM UPDATES
1.1 Water Management Program Background
• The NASA Applied Sciences Program (ASP) held their Annual Program Review Oct.
2-3 2007. Key goals of the review were to prioritize plans for FY07-FY11 and to
outline the Program Plans, including Water Management. The ASP is looking for
synergy and improved communication between programs. FY07 ASP budgets have
modest declines of approximately 5%. Solicitations for new projects, including Water
Management, are planned to be released through „NASA ROSES‟ as early as February
2007.
• Brian Cosgrove (GSFC), Siegfried Schubert (GSFC), Son Nghiem (JPL) and James
Verdin (USGS, NASA funded PI) provided NASA representation to NIDIS (National
Integrated Data Information System) meetings (Longmont, CO and Lincoln, NE) and
are contributing to the “NIDIS Implementation Plan”. Manfred Owe (GSFC) was
designated as the NASA point of contact to NIDIS.
• David Toll and Ted Engman (NASA/GSFC) attended the October 2006 "Advisory
Committee on Water Information's (ACWI's)” Subcommittee on Hydrology (SOH) in
Washington DC. NASA/GSFC agreed to host the next quarterly meeting in Greenbelt,
MD this January 11, 2006.
• The Water Management Program supported the IGWCO Capacity Building Workshops
in Buenos Aires, Argentina (Nov. 2006). Venkat Lakshmi, Univ. South Carolina,
represented NASA. IGWCO directly supports and is aligned with GEO and GEOS
efforts. IGWCO includes capacity building for Africa, Latin America and Asia. A
NASA/GSFC/ORAU Post-Doc, Luis Gustavo de Goncalves is working to use NASA
satellite and LIS modeling products to improve CPTEC South American weather
forecasting skills.
• Ted Engman (NASA/GSFC/SAIC) helped to develop a new project proposal for a
NASA contribution to NASA-ESA cooperation. The project outline is targeting the use
of GRACE data for estimating ground water reservoir changes as a contribution to
ESA-TIGER-AQUIFER project. Ted participated in a telecom with ESA and NASA
staff.
• Engman prepared a paper “The Hydrologic Cycle and the Sustainability of Water
Resources” for an Elements of Life publication being coordinated by Steve Ambrose
(NASA-HQ) and Shahid Habib (GSFC).
• Engman prepared an abstract for an oral presentation at the International Symposium on
Remote Sensing of the Environment. The title of the abstract is “Satellites, A Source of
Water Cycle Information for Water resources Management” and the authors are Ted
Engman, Shahid Habib, Stephen Ambrose, and Fritz Policelli.
• Christa Peters-Lidard and David Toll (NASA/GSFC) developed work outlines with
Valentine Anantharaj and Chuck O‟Hara from Mississippi State University Mississippi
to use NASA products through the „Rapid Prototyping Capability‟ to 1) enhance the
USDA NRCS „SCAN‟ soil moisture data; 2) improve modeling of St Louis Bay
watershed water quality, as well as, the upland to coastal water quality; and 3) improve
South American agriculture efficiency and water availability for the Cordova basin.
• David Toll (NASA/GSFC) co-convened the session, “Computational Rapid Prototyping
Capability for Advancing Science towards Societal Benefits II” at the 2006 Fall
Meeting in San Francisco. He also presented a technical presentation “Programmatic
Perspectives on Using „Rapid Prototyping Capability‟ for Water Management
Applications Using NASA Products”, Lawrence Friedl, Jared Entin and Edwin Engman
are co-authors.
• Look for a new Water Management Project Office web site to be available this January
2007.
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2.0 PROJECT UPDATES
2.1 Nonpoint Source Water Quality Using NASA Products
Investigators: D. Toll (NASA/GSFC), Ed Partington (EPA/OW), James Carleton (EPA/OW), G.
Shenk (EPA/CBP), Angelica Magness (USGS/CBP), E. Engman (SAIC/NASA/GSFC), J.
Nigro (SSAI/NASA/GSFC), W. Ni-Meister (Hunter College), ShihYan Lee (Hunter College),
and Phil Townsend (Univ. Wisc.)
• NASA, EPA and Hunter College met in December to discuss project plans towards a
Benchmark report. Also work was completed towards including NOAA Stage IV
precipitation products to seven basins in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed over various
flow time periods (i.e., peak flow events, low flow, and monthly). NLDAS 1/8 th degree
precipitation data was also substituted for default weather station data and runs were
conducted in all seven of the basins. The preliminary statistical results are being
compared and show an improvement using NLDAS in all basins.
• NASA HQ approved grant work with Hunter College (Wenge Ni-Meister) and
University of Wisconsin (Phil Townsend) to complete work towards benchmarking
NASA products in to the EPA BASINS-HSPF Decision Support Tool. Hunter College
will complete work towards analyzing NASA precipitation and evapotranspiration
estimates to HSPF using the Parameter Estimation (PEST) model calibration tool.
• Work plans are being developed with Chuck O‟Hara of Mississippi State University to
extend Chesapeake Bay results to the Jordan River Catchment in southern Mississippi.
2.2 Water Supply Demand Monitoring and Forecasting Using NASA Products
Kristi Arsenault (UMBC/GEST/NASA/GSFC), David Toll (NASA/GSFC), E. Engman
(NASA/GSFC/SAIC), S. Bowser (BoR), R. Stodt (BoR/TSC), S. Hunter (BoR), A. Brower
(BoR), R. Allen (U. Idaho), and A. Pinheiro (ORAU/NASA/GSFC)
Middle Rio Grande – AWARDS ET Toolbox
The eighth degree NLDAS forcing dataset has been validated in this region with
available in-situ observations from station networks that supply data to the AWARDS ET
Toolbox in New Mexico and also with data from the University of New Mexico eddy
covariance flux towers. Biases in the NLDAS forcing were determined for a four-year
period and are being used to adjust the NLDAS forcing dataset, so it can be used as a
substitute in the observational time-series when measurements are missing. These
updated station datasets will be used next for LIS land surface model (LSM) experiments
where the local forcing will be used to drive the model versus using NLDAS fields. The
evapotranspiration output from the models will then be compared against the local eddy
covariance tower estimates. Additional evaluation studies and sensitivity case
experiments are currently being devised and set up with the aim of better understanding
the LSM physics for this region.
Work by Univ. of Idaho (R. Allen) has provided MODIS-METRIC ET values for 2002
using optical and thermal data. They are also providing updated crop coefficients for
years through 2005 using primarily MODIS vegetation products. Current work is
towards coordinating with NASA and Reclamation plans for Benchmarking in support of
AWARDS ET-Toolbox.
ORAU/NASA/GSFC (A. Pinheiro) is making progress towards assimilating MODIS
Land Surface Temperature fields versus LIS/CLM LST at 1 km focusing on the
parameterization of the emissivity fields and the lack of spatial heterogeneity (vegetation
versus bare) on LIS 1 km pixels. Identical twins experiments using simulation data was
successfully completed using Ensemble Kalman filtering. She is also evaluating
LIS/CLM temperature, radiation, and sensible heat and latent heat fields against in situ
data. Additional work is towards evaluating ET to soil and sensible fluxes and soil
moisture.
Yakima Basin - RiverWare
A recent meeting was held at the Yakima, WA, Reclamation Area Office in mid-
November to follow-up on project plans and tasks. Mark Mastin from USGS attended to
help with the MMS setup and plans for the benchmarking experiments designed for this
area. The experiments include initializing MMS (set up for the Yakima Basin) with the
NOHRSC SNODAS SWE product and then with LIS LSM-based SWE, which will be
further constrained with MODIS snow cover fraction and albedo products. The LIS
LSMs (Noah 2.7.1 and CLM2) have been parameterized with MODIS datasets for this
area, and improvements to the albedo parameterizations are currently being made. Also
in the last two months, LSM sensitivity tests were performed to better understand the
impacts of the elevation adjustment/correction to the NLDAS forcing dataset and
subsequently to the LSMs snow variables. The models are behaving quite sensitively to
slight changes in elevation and hence surface temperatures, having major impacts on the
models' abilities to either retain realistic snow amounts or melt off realistic amounts.
2.3 Title: National Drought Monitoring System for Drought Early Warning Using
Hydrologic and Ecologic Observations from NASA Satellite Data
Investigators: S. V. Nghiem (JPL, PI), J. P. Verdin (USGS, Lead Co-I), D. A. Wilhite (National
Drought Mitigation Center or NDMC), R. Dole (NOAA Physical Science Division), D.
LeComte (NOAA Climate Prediction Center), G. R. Brakenridge (Dartmouth College), E. G.
Njoku (JPL)
Recently received NASA funding to start project (June 2006)
Participation by S. V. Nghiem (per invitation) in the Drought Challenge Workshop
held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in July-August 2006. The workshop address issues
related to drought/NIDIS. It recommended: Focus studies on drought, integration of
current and historical data for drought monitoring, climate model research for drought
applications, and interagency coordination.
JPL processing of subcontracts to co-investigators at USGS, NDMC, and NOAA.
JPL successfully sent a subcontract to USGS/NDMC.
JPL subcontract to NOAA is waiting to be reviewed by the NOAA General Council.
Starting the modification of QSCAT Land Surface Water Processor to ingest newly
reprocessed QuikSCAT data for drought monitoring. (The NASA Scatterometer
Project decided to reprocess the entire QuikSCAT dataset collected since July 1999 –
7 years of data and continuing).
We have newly demonstrated that QSCAT can measure NDVI with a high temporal
resolution without cloud cover effects. QSCAT backscatter is highly correlated to
NDVI as observed from multiple years of data including high-precipitation seasons as
well as severe drought periods. The correlation coefficient between NDVI and
backscatter is as high as 0.92 for the vertical polarization and 0.91 for horizontal
polarization. With the capability to track vegetation change in both wet seasons and
drought periods, QSCAT will help to monitor vegetation conditions for drought
applications.
Participating in the Drought/NIDIS Meetings in Longmont, Colorado. Input from
this meeting was an important part of the Congressional briefing, which was
conducted by Don Wilhite, Steve Wells (President of GSA), and Jack Hess
(Executive Director of GSA) the week following the Drought meeting. NIDIS was
passed by the House and by the Senate Commerce Committee.
Providing comments and suggestions to the development of the NIDIS portal.
2.4 Title: Improving NOAA/NWS River Forecast Center Decision Support with
NASA Satellite and Land Information System Products
Investigators: P. Restrepo (NOAA/NWS/OHD), A. Limaye (MSFC GHCC) Christa Peters-
Lidard (NASA GSFC), C. Laymon (MSFC/USRA/GHCC), W. Crosson
(MSFC/USRA/GHCC), M. Estes (MSFC/USRA/GHCC), Z. Al-Hamden
(MSFC/USRA/GHCC), D.L. Rickman (NASA/MSFC), F. Cosgrove (SAIC/NASA/GSFC), M.
Garcia (UMC/GEST/NASA/GSFC), V. Koren (NOAA/NWS/OHD), D.J. Seo
(UCAR/NOAA/NWS/OHD), M. Smith (NOAA/NWS/OHD), D. Toll (NASA/GSFC), and P.
Houser (GMU/IGES/CREW)
• Currently NOAA OHD still cannot access NASA funds. For the last several months the
funds have been held up at the NOAA legal office. However, work has commenced to
coordinate with NASA MSFC and GSFC for the selection of test sites and the
benchmarking plans of NASA products. D. Toll, C. Peters-Lidard and P. Restrepo
discussed plans to emphasize the assimilation of MODIS snow in to LIS SAC and
Snow-17 models. This replaces previously planned assimilation of MODIS land
surface temperature.
MSFC Work
Phase 1 Activities Objective: to assess the utility of MODIS cloud mask product in
conjunction with cloud ceilometer data from the Automated Surface Observation
System (ASOS) stations to improve hydrologic model performance of the NWSRFS.
• MSFC team is evaluating the NWSRFS hydrologic modeling input data requirements.
• The spatial and temporal extent of this study area is designed to cover parts the
NOAA distributed hydrologic modeling domain. The NOAA effort includes 23
Texas watersheds, 14 of which are included in this study area.
• At present, we are collecting and analyzing data needed for the evaluation and
benchmark study. The various datasets needed for the potential evaporation
estimation include a). ASOS ceilometer data for the stations within the study area, b).
Solar radiation data from the Texas and Oklahoma NRCS Soil Climate Analysis
Network (SCAN) sites and c). MODIS cloud mask data.
GSFC Work
• GSFC and OHD are discussing benchmarking plans of MODIS snow cover assimilation
in to LIS SAC and Snow-17 land surface modeling for benchmarking efforts to the
American Watershed in California.
• Assessment of possible DMIP test sites in California is under evaluation. NOAA and
GSFC are discussing using the snow assimilation in place of MODIS surface
temperature for Phase 2 activities.
• Obtained Sacramento model code, documentation, and parameters from NOAA OHD.
• Installed LIS onto local computer systems as well as Halem supercomputer in
preparation for Sacramento integration into LIS.
• Began Sacramento model integration--process is about 60% complete at this Point.
2.5 Improving water resources management in the western U.S. through use of
remote sensing data and seasonal climate forecasts
Investigators: Dennis Lettenmaier (PI, U. Washington), S. Soorooshian (U. Cal. Irvine), A.
Wood (U. Washington), A. Steinmann (U. Washington), B. Imam (U. Cal. Irvine)
• MODIS snow cover data for the western U.S. has been downloaded from National
Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) and is being updated daily. The MOD10A1 data
set has tiles of daily snow cover at 500 m spatial resolution. It is re-projected to fit the
current UW forecast system. The MODIS snow cover and snow albedo data is directly
inserted to VIC model to update the model status. A data assimilation procedure that
will update nowcasts, initially for the Feather River basin, is currently being tested.
• A. Wood met with Klamath Falls USBR water managers in November to discuss
seasonal forecast use and implementation in the upper Klamath R. basin. Citing recent
failures and frustrations associated with the official NRCS/NWS seasonal forecast
products and the institutionally mandated framework for forecast use, USBR water
managers indicated that they intend to de-emphasize use of seasonal forecasts and
migrate toward an operational management approach that places higher weight on
nowcasts of moisture conditions (snowpack, soil moisture and river flow), and on
medium-range forecasts (1-15 day). Accordingly, we are revising our product
development priorities in the Upper Klamath River basin to respond by accelerating
implementation of an approach for medium range forecasting. In particular, we have
negotiated with NOAA ESRL to implement a 1-15 day forecast approach in a pilot
mode for the Klamath basin. The forecast approach, which is based on the use of
climate analogues and a reforecast database developed by Tom Hamill at ESRL, will be
implemented on a pilot basis, initially for the upper Klamath R. basin.
• Work continues on implementation of the CaliForecast system at UCI. The UCI team
has acquired the necessary software tools required to utilize the CALSIM model, which
is used to compute forecast impairments. We have not yet installed and tested the
CALSIM model, but we will initiate the process as soon as forecast points are identified
and the hydrologic model is calibrated (currently in process).
• The forecast calibration method evaluation has been completed, and a journal paper
submitted. Wood, A.W., 2006, Correcting errors in streamflow forecast ensemble
mean and spread, in review, Journal of Hydrometeorology.
• We have begun work to implement VIC at higher resolution (1/16 degree lat-long) for
Washington, Oregon and California, which contain the target Klamath and Sacramento
River basins. In addition, we have altered the forecast implementation to facilitate
daily nowcasts, which will support more frequent forecast updates than are possible
with the present West-wide system. Finally, forecast system capabilities have been
enhanced with new nowcast diagnostic analyses, which are intended for eventual use in
the target basins.
• We are in the process of performing retrospective evaluations of forecast system
performance in the Feather River basin as part of a joint forecast error evaluation with
NWS (see Task 6) which will aid in further enhancements to the system. At present, the
model forcing (and updating) data sets are the same as we are using in our Westwide
Forecast System, however we expect to augment these with additional DWR and other
data.
• A conference call was held with DWR (see attached summary), in late November which
has helped to focus development of forecast products. Given the interest of DWR in
short lead (flood) forecasts, we intend to implement the same ESRL 1-15 day forecast
system in the California portion of the domain (initially Feather River) as in the
Klamath (see Task 1 summary). In addition, a meeting at DWR headquarters in
Sacramento with UW is scheduled for early in January.
Univ. Washington – California Department of Water Resources Conference Call
Summary, November 28, 2006
The purpose was to find out the forecasting needs of California DWR. The
California DWR reports that climate forecasts would be useful in better predicting
water supply availability. Currently, two forecasts are issued for water supply –
seasonal forecasts that are disaggregated into monthly forecasts. The Water Supply
Index (WSI) is issued from December through May or June of each year, and is
based on the Sacramento Valley Index and the San Joaquin Valley Index. Bulletin
120, which is based on historical data, is issued each year beginning February 1,
with revised forecasts on March 1, April 1, and May 1. The forecasts drive most of
the water resource decisions in the state, including those related to the Central
Valley Project and agriculture. Since the forecasts use different methods, DWR
generally has a hard time making the two agree, and this could be a potential area
for improvement. In addition, the water supply forecasts are not used to help make
operations decisions, although it would be helpful to be able to do that. DWR
currently looks at CPC forecasts in broad terms only, since they generally only
provide regional information, and do not get specific enough for DWR’s needs. It is
not clear whether these forecasts are precise enough for DWR’s needs. In general,
it appears that the project scope identified by University of Washington is in line
with DWR needs. Of particular note is the fact that they still rely on statistical,
historical data to produce forecasts, since hydrology in recent years has been so
erratic.
• We have conducted preliminary hindcasts (retrospective forecasts) of summer period
runoff (April-July) in the Feather R. basin for establishing baseline forecast skill levels
(show hind cast results). Results shows 56 years of hindcasts initiated on the primary
streamflow forecast dates used for operational purposes: Jan 1, Feb 1, Mar 1, Apr 1,
May 1, and Jun 1. The hindcasts show adequate correlations with observations, but the
uncertainty bounds provided by the ESP forecast technique (which is a baseline
approach used operationally in the NWS) are erroneously narrow (suggesting forecast
overconfidence). As a result, we have also explored a forecast calibration approach that
corrects for forecast uncertainty errors, based on using the ESP mean as a single value
forecast and formulating the uncertainty from both forecast correlation and
climatological information (Wood, A.W., and Schaake, J.C. Jr, 2006. A simplified approach
to hydrologic ensemble prediction, to be submitted, Journal of Hydrometeorology.). The
resulting forecast error distributions match those observed during the 56-year hindcast
evaluation period. This technique is likely to become a central part of the forecasts
transferred in this project.
2.6 What is the Value of Integrating Best Estimates of Regional Evapotranspiration
into Hydrologic Decision Support Systems?
PI: Ian Hendricks, New Mexico Tech
• The Cooperative Agreement for this new project was finalized in the middle of October
with an effective date of September 1, 2006. This is a two-year project.
• A Scope of Work has been prepared for the subcontract with the US Bureau of
Reclamation (Co-PI Richard Stodt). An official subcontract has been sent to US BoR
by New Mexico Tech.
• Preparations are under way for the subcontracts with the US Army Corps of Engineers
(Co-PI Aaron Byrd) and with Co-PI Allen.
• We have compared ET maps derived from Landsat and MODIS using SEBALNM. It
appears that up scaling of ET maps (from Landsat to MODIS scale) can be realized by
simple averaging routines.
• We have programmed in Matlab an algorithm (published in the early 1980s by Diak and
his colleagues) to derive incoming global radiation from GOES images.
• We have approached colleagues in New Mexico for the Education and Outreach part of
this project but we have not been able to establish communication with the point of
contact within NASA to proceed with this activity.
3.0 ISSUES AND CONCERNS
• There were many problems with dissemination of funds, especially to the Restrepo and
Nghiem projects. For some of these activities, funds are still not fully disseminated
{i.e., Noah OHD to Restrepo {currently a NOAA legal)}.