Water Wheel July/Aug 2025: Groundwater Management

Abstract

From space to soil: Tracking South Africa’s shrinking water reserves A somewhat surprising effect of climate change was recently reported by local and international media, following a press release issued in April by the University of Bonn in Germany. Titled “Climate change is lifting South Africa out of the ocean” , it claimed that droughts and the associated water loss caused the country to rise by 6 mm between 2012 and 2020. The press release marked the publication of a paper by Mielke et al. in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. This had the far less sensationalist title “GNSS observations of the land uplift in South Africa: implications for water mass loss” , referring to data from the national network of continuously operating Global Navigation Satellite System base stations. Known as TrigNet, it came into operation in 1999, providing Global Positioning System (GPS) data that is used not only for surveying and mapping but also for research and monitoring of atmospheric water vapour, space weather and movements of the Earth’s crust.

Categories