NASA-Led Study Provides New Global Accounting of Earth’s Rivers

A study led by NASA researchers provides new estimates of how much water courses through Earth’s rivers

the rates at which it’s flowing into the ocean, and how much both of those figures have fluctuated over time

The results also highlight regions depleted by heavy water use, including the Colorado River basin in the United States

For the study, which was recently published in Nature Geoscience, researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California used a novel methodology that combines stream

The scientists estimate that the total volume of water in Earth’s rivers on average from 1980 to 2009 was 539 cubic miles

“There are many things we can do to manage how we’re using it and make sure there is enough water for everyone, but the first question is

That’s what the researchers found for parts of the Colorado, Amazon, and Orange river basins, as well as the Murray-Darling basin in southeastern Australia.

“These are locations where we’re seeing fingerprints of water management,” said lead author Elyssa Collins"

The new study started from the premise that runoff flowing into and through a river system should roughly equal the amount that gauges measure downstream.

which were used to estimate average and monthly storage for individual rivers and the planet’s rivers in total.

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