SWOT is an ambitious satellite mission, providing breakthrough in scientific and applications fields, allowing the collection of unprecedented observations of the world’s oceans and terrestrial surface waters. Beyond the scientific contribution to a better understanding of the water cycle, SWOT could have an economic and social impact with the provision of information on freshwater resources.
Designed to make the first-ever global survey of Earth's surface water, the Surface Water and Ocean Topography, or SWOT, satellite will collect detailed measurements of how water bodies on Earth change over time.
Bridging the gap between remote sensing experts, hydrologists and operational agencies is one of the objectives of the CNES SWOT downstream program. Within this objective, the partnership with South America scientists and stakeholders is a crucial driver of the SWOT science and application programs. “Selma Cherchali , CNES Earth Observation Programme manager”
Climate, weather, and human life are profoundly affected by changes in Earth’s continuous, interconnected ‘water cycle’. Observing and monitoring the key variables governing the global water cycle is essential to our understanding of the Earth’s climate, forecasting weather, predicting floods and droughts, and improving water management for human use. The progress of Earth Observation Satellite Technologies (EO) has made it possible since at least the last 40 years to survey several of these key water variables from space. In the coming years, an increasing number of EO missions will offer an unprecedented capacity to observe the Earth’s surface, its interior and the atmosphere, ushering in a new era in the science of the Earth environment and the water cycle.
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