Groundwater monitoring in California’s Central Valley using satellite remote sensing

Speaker:
Dr Chandrakanta Ojha
Topic:
Rapid population growth and an increasing demand for water has been depleting groundwater resources in the Central Valley of California for decades. The lack of sufficient ground monitoring networks poses serious challenges to water management efforts and puts the sustainability of groundwater resources at risk. This seminar will demonstrate how the satellite remote sensing techniques of Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) and the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) can be applied to monitor groundwater resources and aquifer response to drought. The final part of this seminar will describe how GA is currently trialling the demonstrated methods as remote groundwater monitoring tools in the Great Artesian Basin of Australia.
Biography:
Dr. Ojha joined GA in February 2020 as an InSAR scientist. He received his Masters from IIT Bombay in 2011, and PhD from the University of Rome in 2015. From 2012 to 2016 he was a research fellow at IREA-CNR, Italy, followed by the Arizona State University from 2016 to 2019.