Detection of extreme terrestrial water storage variations in the Paraná river basin from GRACE regional solutions, SAR data and in situ information

AYELEN PEREIRA; CECILIA CORNERO; ANA CRISTINA OLIVEIRA CANCORO DE MATOS; MARÍA CRISTINA PACINO; DENIZAR BLITZKOW; LETICIA M. BURGUÉS; SEBASTIÁN AMHERDT

Montréal

Otro; 257th Interrnational Union of Geodesy and Geophysics General Assembly; 2019

Interrnational Union of Geodesy and Geophysics IUGG

The Parana river basin is the major contribution to the La Plata basin, the fifth largest hydrographic system in the world. In the period 2002-2017, this sub-basin located in South America, has had events of extraordinary floods with human losses and property damages, as well as extreme situations of water storage deficit, as the drought of 2009. To monitor these environments at large spatial scales, the satellite gravity mission GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment) provided until 2017 time-variable Earth?s gravity field models that reflected the variations due to mass transport processes, like continental water storage changes. The purpose of this work is to analyze the spatial and temporal water storage (TWS) variations for the period 2002-2017 derived from regional GRACE monthly estimates at the Paraná river basin region. The study focuses in the detection of the extreme TWS results, which are evaluated together with SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite) data.Furthermore, the comparison of the TWS with river gauge and precipitation data was carried out. In order to validate the satellite results, the correlation analysis between the water mass changes and in situ measurements was obtained, and the phase differences for the studied variables were also evaluated. Preliminary results indicate that most of the TWS variations are related to extreme climatic events ?as the floods occurred in the 2015-2017 period, and the 2009 drought that affected South America- and linked to periods of El Niño and La Niña.