Counting every drop: How space technology is rewriting water accounting and auditing
At sunrise in Bundelkhand, Northern India, farmer Ramesh Patel walks across a cracked wheat field, where the delayed and weak monsoon has left his crops wilting and wells running dry. Over the past five years, wells have sunk several meters, and groundwater levels in the region have fallen steadily for more than two decades (CGWB 2021; Niranjannaik et al. 2022). He is not alone: farmers, water managers, industries, and hydropower operators around the world face the same urgent question—how much water do we really have?
