One Earth satellite can see plankton that photosynthesize. The other measures water surface height. Together, their data reveals how sea life and the ocean are intertwined.

Data from the U.S.-European Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission gives researchers a detailed look at lakes and reservoirs in a U.S. watershed.

On World Water Day, to celebrate this precious and finite resource, we spoke with experts and learned about the importance of groundwater, how our ocean affects us and how one of our upcoming Earth missions will give us a unique perspective on water.

One of the things the SWOT mission will do is help scientists track the amount of fresh water in lakes, rivers, and reservoirs, and monitor how they change over time.

Sascha Burton and her work on SWOT were featured by NASA Earth on International Women's Day

Missions studying climate systems & processes such as surface water and oceans, extreme storms, and atmospheric dust will be launching this year, with SWOT among them.

NASA has funded 11 new projects as part of the agency’s Earth Science Data Systems’ Advancing Collaborative Connections for Earth Systems Science (ACCESS) program. Proposals submitted in 2019 and funded in 2020 focused on three areas: machine learning, science in the cloud, and open source tools.

How much do you know about SWOT? Take the quiz and learn about how and where SWOT will provide us with new and detailed information on one of our most important resources– water.

The SWOT Science Team is made up of researchers from across the globe, with expertise in ocean and hydrologic sciences. Learn more about what will make SWOT a transformational satellite mission by visiting the Science Team page.

Scroll through these e-brochures to learn what SWOT will measure –and why the very first comprehensive view of Earth's freshwater bodies from space will be so important for both research and society.