Department of Hydrology, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, India.
Climate Analytics, Analysis, and Synthesis for Action (CAASA) Research Collective, School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska- Lincoln, Lincoln, USA.
Environ Monit Assess. 2024 Nov 28;196(12):1266. doi: 10.1007/s10661-024-13315-5.
Water resource management is becoming essential due to many anthropogenic and climatic factors resulting in dwindling water resources. Traditionally, geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) have long been instrumental in water resource assessment and management as the satellites or airborne units are periodically utilized to collect data from large areal extent. However, these platforms have limited computational capability and localized storage systems. Recently, these limitations have been overcome by the application of Google Earth Engine (GEE) that offers a faster and more reliable cloud-based GIS and remote sensing platform that leverages its parallel processing capabilities. Thereby, in recent years, GEE has witnessed rapid and accelerated adoption and usage in a wide variety of domains, including water resource monitoring, assessment and management. However, no systematic studies have been made to review the GEE application in water resource management. This review article is a maiden attempt towards developing an understanding of the functioning of GEE and its application in water resource assessment, covering both of its aspects viz (a) water quantity and (b) water quality. The review further attempts to illustrate its capabilities in real-world utility, through a case study conducted to analyze water quality and quantity of lake mead, a reservoir of Hoover Dam, Nevada (USA), at a monthly scale for a 3-year period spanning from 2021 to 2023. The results of this case study showcase the applicability of GEE to the water resource quantity and quality monitoring, assessment and management problems. The review further discusses the existing challenges with the application of GEE in water resource assessment and the scope for further improvement. In conclusion, after tackling the existing challenges with GEE, the application of GEE in water resources has huge potential for management planning of our water resources by addressing the forthcoming challenges.
水资源管理变得至关重要，这是由于许多人为和气候因素导致水资源日益减少。传统上，地理信息系统（GIS）和遥感（RS）长期以来一直是水资源评估和管理的重要手段，因为卫星或机载设备定期用于从大面积收集数据。然而，这些平台的计算能力有限，存储系统本地化。最近，Google Earth Engine（GEE）的应用克服了这些限制，它提供了一个更快、更可靠的基于云的 GIS 和遥感平台，利用其并行处理能力。因此，近年来，GEE 在包括水资源监测、评估和管理在内的各种领域得到了快速加速的采用和使用。然而，尚未对 GEE 在水资源管理中的应用进行系统研究。本文综述首次尝试了解 GEE 的工作原理及其在水资源评估中的应用，涵盖了其两个方面：（a）水量和（b）水质。该综述还试图通过对美国内华达州胡佛大坝水库米德湖的水质和水量进行案例研究，展示其在实际应用中的能力，该案例研究在 2021 年至 2023 年期间以每月为单位进行了为期 3 年的分析。该案例研究的结果展示了 GEE 在水资源数量和质量监测、评估和管理问题中的适用性。该综述进一步讨论了 GEE 在水资源评估中的应用所面临的现有挑战以及进一步改进的空间。总之，在解决了 GEE 存在的挑战之后，GEE 在水资源中的应用具有巨大的潜力，可以通过应对即将到来的挑战来为我们的水资源管理规划提供支持。
