Geodesy in the 21st Century

Abstract

The paper deals with the purpose of Geodesy in the 21st Century, it opens by stating that

Geodesy's current concern is with changes in the shape of Earth's surface, due to small detectable

changes that are associated with issues that have a large societal impact, among the likes of ice

melting, sea levels rising, and such. The paper notes that 21st century geodetic studies are

dominated by geodetic measurements from space, whose improvement has lead to them having

subcentimeneter level accuracy. It also offers an insight into the discovery of the „elastic

rebound theory“ which was established by analyzing geodetic measurements. The paper also

describes and discusses the historical development of space geodetic measurements, concluding

that they allow for precise determination of position, surface elevation, and gravity field, and

their changes over time with global coverage. Furhtermore, geodesy also utilizes observation

from nongeodetic missions. The focus then shifts to types of modern geodetic missions, and it

categorizes them into four basic techniques: positioning, altimetry, interferometric sythetic

aperture radar (InSAR), and gravity studies. Precise positioning is based on detecting the phase

delay in the arrival of quasar signals between two sites, which has lead to the development of

Gobal Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), which allow for precise positioning. GNSS

observations also have a very high temporal resolution, and they yield observation of time-

dependant processes. Laser altimetry measures the satellite's height above the Earth's surface,

which is converted to the surface height above a refernce ellipsoid. The author also discusses

how InSAR allows for the production of digital elevation models with high spatial resolutions.

The paper also describes and discusses applications of geodesy in the global scale, such as

allowing measurements of sea level changes over entire ocean basins, continental scale, and local

1
scales. The paper concludes with the sociteal implications, and offers an insight into how

geodetic monitoring of water levels can serve as a decision support tool for water resource

managers.

Keywords: Geodesy, elastic rebound theory, positioning, altimetry, interferometric

sythetic aperture radar (InSAR), phase delay, Gobal Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)

Filip Papić