Potential for satellite remote sensing of ground water

Predicting hydrologic behavior at regional scales requires heterogeneous data that are often prohibitively expensive to acquire on the ground. As a result, satellite-based remote sensing has become a powerful tool for surface hydrology. Subsurface hydrology has yet to realize the benefits of remote sensing, even though surface expressions of ground water can be monitored from space. Remotely sensed indicators of ground water may provide important data where practical alternatives are not available. The potential for remote sensing of ground water is explored here in the context of active and planned satellite-based sensors. Satellite technology is reviewed with respect to its ability to measure ground water potential, storage, and fluxes. It is argued here that satellite data can be used if ancillary analysis is used to infer ground water behavior from surface expressions. Remotely sensed data are most useful where they are combined with numerical modeling, geographic information systems, and ground-based information.