Measuring Water Resources with GPS, Gravity, and Traditional Methods

Bruce Douglas (Indiana University-Bloomington)
Eric Small (University of Colorado at Boulder)
Editor: Beth Pratt-Sitaula (UNAVCO)

Author Profiles

This material was developed and reviewed through the GETSI curricular materials development process.

This material was developed and reviewed through the GETSI curricular materials development process. This rigorous, structured process includes:

team-based development to ensure materials are appropriate across multiple educational settings.
multiple iterative reviews and feedback cycles through the course of material development with input to the authoring team from both project editors and an external assessment team.
real in-class or field camp/course testing of materials in multiple courses with external review of student assessment data.
multiple reviews to ensure the materials meet the GETSI materials rubric which codifies best practices in curricular development, student assessment and pedagogic techniques.
created or reviewed by content experts for accuracy of the science content.

This page first made public: Jun 22, 2017

Summary

Measuring water resources such as groundwater and snowpack is challenging, but the advent of satellite gravity measurements and hydrologic GPS applications can augment traditional methods. This module gives students the unique opportunity to learn these newer methods alongside more traditional ones of groundwater wells and SNOTEL stations. They determine the pros/cons, uncertainty, and spatial scales of different methods. Droughts in the High Plains Aquifer and California are used as case studies. In the summative assessment, students pull together what they have learned and write a report with recommendations for policy makers.

Show more about Online Teaching suggestions

Webinar about teaching this module: Addressing Water Resources and Sustainability in Upper-level Undergraduate Courses

For introductory-level treatment of water resources, please see Eyes on the Hydrosphere: Tracking Water Resources and Measuring the Earth with GPS - Unit 4

Strengths of the Module

The students learn about the water cycle in a concrete, nontheoretical way. They learn the challenges and methods of measuring different aspects of the water cycle and gain a better understanding of the very real societal hurdles to providing sufficient water for agriculture and communities—especially during droughts.
The module emphasizes large time-series data sets that the students need to display, manipulate, analyze, and integrate. These include traditional methods of precipitation, groundwater well-logs, and SNOTEL pillows, as well as geodetic methods of total water storage (TWS) from gravity data (GRACE satellites), TWS from GPS vertical position, and snow depth from reflection GPS. Students find it fascinating to learn that geodetic methods such as GPS were not intended for water resource measurement. These applications were discovered later after GPS were installed to measure things such as tectonic motions.
Unit 4 serves as a summative assessment in which students distill the main points of a longer lab exercise into a report that is intended for California policy makers or nonprofit organizations.
The module can be used in traditional laboratory sessions, as part of a lecture/lab combination, or in a flipped classroom. The units may also be modified to combine various portions and delete others.
Students gain significant experience applying a variety of quantitative skills from time-series analysis to graphing and uncertainties.