The SWOT satellite mission will observe water surface elevation, slope, storage change (directly) and river discharge (indirectly) globally at unprecedented spatial resolutions and accuracies, potentially having a “transformational impact in terrestrial hydrology”.
Snow accumulation and its melt dominate water resources in mountainous areas, with regions such as the western United States deriving more than 75% of the total freshwater available annually from snowmelt.
Rice is Asia’s most important food crop with nearly 3 billion people reliant on rice as their major food source. Over the next ten years this number is expected to climb to nearly 4 billion people.