Great Artesian Basin groundwater project using space gravity observations.

Changes in groundwater can be derived from satellite data across Australia by subtracting changes in soil moisture from changes in total water storage (and assuming that no other significant changes in mass are occurring by other processes). This approach was implemented in a study of groundwater changes in the Great Artesian Basin. Total water storage estimates were derived from GRACE and GRACE Follow-On data, while soil moisture values were taken from outputs of a number of land surface models.

Additionally, the total water storage and soil moisture information was assimilated into the AWRA-L land surface model to assess whether and how the data assimilation process would modeify/improve the groundwater output estimates of the model.

Three technical reports were created during this project and are provided at the following links:

Monitoring groundwater in the Great Artesian Basin through remote sensing: the Surat Basin (pdf)
Monitoring groundwater storage_in the Great Artesian Basin through remote sensing: data assimilation over the Surat and Eromanga Basins (pdf)
Groundwater estimates in the Great Artesian Basin (2018-2020) from the analysis of GRACE Follow-On data (pdf)

The total water storage, soil moisture and groundwater estimates are provided in netcdf format here.

The project was funded by Geoscience Australia as part of the broader Australian Government Great Artesian Basin project.