Trends in Global Freshwater Availability from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)

The Trends in Global Freshwater Availability from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), 2002-2016, is a global gridded data set at a spatial resolution of 0.5 degrees that presents trends (rate of change measured in centimeters per year) in freshwater availability based on data obtained from 2002 to 2016 by NASA GRACE. Terrestrial water availability storage is the sum of groundwater, soil moisture, snow and ice, surface waters, and wet biomass, expressed as an equivalent height of water. GRACE measures changes in the terrestrial water cycle by assessing small changes in Earth's gravity field. This observation-based assessment of how the world's water cycle is responding to human impacts and climate variations provides an important tool for evaluating and predicting emerging threats to water and food security.