The idea is that a lot of these reservoirs,
we don't have in-situ measurements of the elevation or storage,
or there are, they are not publicly available.
We are using the elevation collected by ICESat-2
the “E” part, the land elevation,
but more specifically is the water surface elevation.
So we leverage this information to use it
to generate the reservoirs area-elevation
relationships and also to estimate time
series of the elevation and storage
so that we can use this data set
both for science and applications.
With ICESat-2, it has very high, highly accurate elevation.
The downsides of it is the long return period.
So what we are doing is we leverage this elevation information
in combination with other satellite data, like Landsat,
so build up to build this bathymetry information.
So once we have this, we have the flexibility
to estimate the storage, either from elevation from area
whenever you have observation, you increase the
you know, the temporal resolution.
Through using this area-
elevation relationship, we combine with some MODIS and VIIRS data.
We developed a global water reservoir product for NASA.
This is one of the NASA-funded projects.
So you can picture people in India can
go to this website and access the data.
There are a lot of reservoirs
not monitored or shared,
and there are many of them
in remote locations.
And in addition to reservoirs, there are also many
natural lakes of different sizes.
So ICESat-2, because its
high spatial resolution, that benefits a lot.