The Challenges and Opportunities of Hydrologic Remote Sensing in Data-Poor Regions: Case Study of Nile River Basin

Abstract:

The Nile River Basin (NRB) is one of the largest trans-boundary watercourses; it is the lifeline for more than 300 million people belonging to 11 African nations sharing the NRB. The riparian countries are challenged by their infirm relationships, lack of information sharing and insufficient monitoring stations. Thus, to understand the water future along the NRB under the changing climate, reliable, and sufficient information are needed. This to assess and understand: whether will be more rainfall and induced flooding events, or the drought conditions with less surface runoff will be dominant over the Nile Basin? In addition, to what extent the available remote sensing and model reanalysis data can substitute the lack of detailed ground information, and help to determine the size and risk associated to the climatic impact on the Nile Basin?

In the current study, we utilizing multi-scale remote sensing, and model reanalysis datasets for hydrologic monitoring along the NRB in Africa. The list of remote sensing, and model reanalysis datasets that implemented: several MODIS satellite products such as the NDVI, LAI, LST, and LULC datasets. Three GRACE satellite derivative products: TWS, EWT, and DTWS, and TRMM satellite precipitation product. In addition to number of model reanalysis datasets including Global Precipitation Climatological Center (GPCC) datasets, Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) products, Climate Research Unit (CRU) datasets, Physical Science Division (PSD) gridded climate dataset, and in situ Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC) datasets. The main objective of our research is to monitor the hydrological changes and the variation in water balance along the NRB. The study approach accomplished through: (1) developing a distributed storage changes based grid, (2) trend analysis and inter-annual variability shift detections using regime shift analysis, (3) define the water stress and water deficit periods along the Nile Basins, (4) applying multi regression statistical approach to understand the relation between total water storage and other hydrological variables. The primary trend analysis and shift detection indicated that the basin area was influenced by different fluctuation period. This mainly subjected the Nile Basin region to several water stress and water deficit periods.