Applications

NASA and CNES, along with our Canadian and UK space agency partners, are developing a mission to make the first global survey of Earth's surface water. The SWOT mission, with its wide swath altimetry technology, will be able to cover most of the world's ocean and freshwater bodies with repeated high-resolution elevation measurements, providing observations of fine details of the ocean's surface topography, and measuring how water bodies change over time. The SWOT Applications Working Group (SAWG) supports the SWOT Early Adopters community to incorporate future SWOT data and information products into their activities.

NASA's Applied Sciences Program, along with the SWOT project team, are implementing a strategy that promotes applications research and engages a broad community of users in the uses of SWOT data. This mission is being developed in response to recommendations of the National Research Council Decadal Survey report (Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond, Space Studies Board, National Academies Press, 2007). There is a developing need for the applied science community of practice to become part of the flight mission development process, from inception through launch and operations. The end goal is to integrate this community that will eventually utilize science and data products in addressing societal issues and needs.

Goals of the SWOT Applications Program

The goals for the applications program include:

• Promote the use of SWOT products to a community of end-users and decision makers that understand SWOT and related mission capabilities and are interested in using SWOT data products in their application.
• Facilitate feedback between SWOT user communities and the SWOT project.
• Provide information on collaborations with different types of users and communities including those of ocean research, ice and drought studies, agricultural impacts, operational oceanography, and others.
• Design communication strategies to target and support requirements of the user community.

Applications Working Group

The SWOT Applications Working Group (SAWG) is comprised of key applications-focused Project and science team members, as well as interested operational users and others with interests in applied remote sensing data for hydrology and oceanography applications. The SAWG is facilitated by the SWOT Applications Leads to coordinate on SWOT applications activities and to participate in applications-focused discussions, workshops and sessions at appropriate meetings. The working group supported development of the SWOT Applications Plan, participates in applications workshops and tutorials, and supports work with the SWOT applications Early Adopters (EA).

The SAWG has the following objectives:

• Assess applications benefits and requirements for SWOT data products
• Support a community of end-users that understand SWOT capabilities and are interested in using SWOT data products for their application
• Target partners who can work with the SWOT EAs to assess impacts on their applications and data product formulation
• Provide information about SWOT to a broad user community

View technical information about SWOT science and capabilities. Visit the CNES Applications page on the AVISO web site. Visit the Canadian Space Agency Applications page.