Publications related to the GRACE Missions (no abstracts)

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Enhanced Detection of Drought Events in California's Central Valley Basin Using Rauch─Tung─Striebel Smoothed GRACE Level-2 Data: Mechanistic Insights from Climate─Hydrology Interactions

Feng, Yong, Qian, Nijia, Tong, Qingqing, Cao, Yu, Huan, Yueyang, Zhu, Yuhua, and Yang, Dehu, 2025. Enhanced Detection of Drought Events in California's Central Valley Basin Using Rauch─Tung─Striebel Smoothed GRACE Level-2 Data: Mechanistic Insights from Climate─Hydrology Interactions. Remote Sensing, 17(22):3683, doi:10.3390/rs17223683.

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@ARTICLE{2025RemS...17.3683F,
       author = {{Feng}, Yong and {Qian}, Nijia and {Tong}, Qingqing and {Cao}, Yu and {Huan}, Yueyang and {Zhu}, Yuhua and {Yang}, Dehu},
        title = "{Enhanced Detection of Drought Events in California's Central Valley Basin Using Rauch─Tung─Striebel Smoothed GRACE Level-2 Data: Mechanistic Insights from Climate─Hydrology Interactions}",
      journal = {Remote Sensing},
     keywords = {GRACE, state space model, generalized three-cornered hat, GRACE groundwater drought index, El Ni{\~n}o─Southern Oscillation},
         year = 2025,
        month = nov,
       volume = {17},
       number = {22},
          eid = {3683},
        pages = {3683},
     abstract = "{A new state-space denoising approach for the Gravity Recovery and
        Climate Experiment (GRACE) spherical harmonic solutions
        suppresses striping more effectively than conventional DDK3/4
        filters while preserving geophysical signals. Combined with a
        generalized three-cornered hat uncertainty analysis, it ranks
        alternative solutions and selects an optimal estimate of total
        water storage and groundwater. A mechanistic climate linkage
        shows a 2─3-month lag from El Ni{\~n}o─Southern Oscillation
        (ENSO) to precipitation and total water storage anomalies. In
        California's Central Valley, precipitation explains ≍65\% of
        groundwater variability. Extremes are quantified: two prolonged
        droughts (2008, 2013) caused ≍91.45 km$^{3}$ groundwater loss,
        whereas the 2006 flood replenished ≍19.81 km$^{3}$. The lagged
        ENSO─water storage relationship supports earlier, more reliable
        drought outlooks and operational groundwater monitoring, with
        fewer false alarms due to improved denoising and quantified
        uncertainty. Quantified losses with uncertainty bounds provide
        actionable benchmarks for water allocation, managed aquifer
        recharge, and drought mitigation in the Central Valley; the
        workflow is transferable to other basins. To mitigate the impact
        of north─south strip errors inherent in Gravity Recovery and
        Climate Experiment (GRACE) spherical harmonic coefficient
        solutions, this research develops a state-space model to
        generate a more robust solution. The efficacy of the state-space
        model is demonstrated by comparing its performance with that of
        conventional filtering methods and hydrological modeling
        schemes. The method is subsequently applied to estimate the
        GRACE Groundwater Drought Index in the California Central Valley
        basin, a region significantly affected by drought during the
        GRACE observation period. This analysis quantifies the severity
        of droughts and floods while investigating the direct influences
        of precipitation, runoff, evaporation, and anthropogenic
        activities. By incorporating the El Ni{\~n}o─Southern
        Oscillation (ENSO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the
        study offers a detailed causal analysis and proposes a novel
        methodology for water resource management and disaster early
        warning. The results indicate that a moderate-duration flood
        event in 2006 resulted in a recharge of 19.81 km$^{3}$ of water
        resources in the California Central Valley basin, whereas
        prolonged droughts in 2008 and 2013, lasting over 15 months, led
        to groundwater depletion of 41.53 km$^{3}$ and 91.45 km$^{3}$,
        respectively. Precipitation and runoff are identified as the
        primary determinants of local drought and flood conditions. The
        occurrence of ENSO events correlates with sustained
        precipitation variations over the subsequent 2─3 months,
        resulting in corresponding changes in groundwater storage.}",
          doi = {10.3390/rs17223683},
       adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025RemS...17.3683F},
      adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}

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