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Monitoring terrestrial water storage, drought and seasonal changes in central Oklahoma with ambient seismic noise
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  • Shuo Zhang,
  • Bingxu Luo,
  • Yehuda Ben-Zion,
  • David E Lumley,
  • Hejun Zhu
Shuo Zhang
University of Texas at Dallas
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Bingxu Luo
The University of Texas at Dallas
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Yehuda Ben-Zion
University of Southern California
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David E Lumley
University of Texas at Dallas
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Hejun Zhu
University of Texas at Dallas

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Abstract

Significant imbalances in terrestrial water storage (TWS) and severe drought have been observed around the world as a consequence of climate changes. Improving our ability to monitor TWS and drought is critical for water-resource management and water-deficit estimation. We use continuous seismic ambient noise to monitor temporal evolution of near-surface seismic velocity, dv/v, in central Oklahoma from 2013 to 2022. The derived dv/v is found to be negatively correlated with gravitational measurements and groundwater depths, showing the impact of groundwater storage on seismic velocities. Seasonal cycling of dv/v follows atmospheric temperature changes with a phase shift, which can be explained by thermo-elastic strain in the uppermost crust and sedimentary cover. The occurrences of droughts appear simultaneously with the local peaks of dv/v, demonstrating the sensitivity of near-surface seismic velocities to droughts. The results illustrate the potential of using seismic data for monitoring TWS and drought at regional to local scales.
28 Feb 2023Submitted to ESS Open Archive
01 Mar 2023Published in ESS Open Archive