Facilitating Earth Observation: GFZ’s GNSS Instrument Pool

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) like GPS or Galileo allow high-accurate positioning and geolocation. GNSS has been used in geosciences for more than three decades for surface deformation monitoring, including tectonics, earthquake cycle, and vertical land motion associated with postglacial rebound. The possibility of observing atmospheric conditions, especially electron content and water vapor distribution, allows multi-purpose applications. Thanks to modernizations in the GNSS constellations, including new signals, advanced and cost-efficient receiver equipment has been developed over the past few years. This allows the establishment of dense observation networks and advanced observation scenarios.

GFZ recently integrated GNSS receivers into the Geophysical Instrument Pool (GIPP) to support GNSS-based applications in various domains. This research infrastructure facility is open to all national and international academic applicants; the instruments are provided free of charge following a transparent application and evaluation procedure. This contribution presents the available GNSS equipment, potential applications, and the user pipeline from deployment to results. Results from two supported projects will be presented in more detail. The first focuses on surface deformation across the Irpinia and Pergola-Melandro fault system and the second on monitoring seasonal acceleration at the 79°N Glacier in Greenland. Both examples highlight the value of accurate, in-situ coordinate time series.