NASA-French SWOT Satellite Provides Global Estimate of River Discharge

Science teams at NASA and the French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales) have released the first-ever global estimate of river discharge and suspended sediment, as observed from space, marking a new milestone in our ability to understand one of Earth’s most fundamental systems.

Developed using data from the SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) satellite, this resource makes it possible to estimate river discharge, defined as the volume of water flowing per second at a given point along the river, as well as suspended sediment concentration in every river on Earth wider than 160 feet (50 meters). This information could help people manage freshwater resources more efficiently, predict floods more reliably, and forecast crop yields more accurately.

This is only SWOT’s latest first. Built and managed jointly by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and CNES, in partnership with CSA (Canadian Space Agency) and the UK Space Agency, SWOT recently revealed that relatively small ocean features, such as eddies and waves, have a larger impact on how nutrients and heat move through marine ecosystems than previously thought.

The data and algorithms driving these estimates are accessible to the public through NASA’s Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center , part of the Earth Observing System Data and Information System .

~Gage Taylor