The SWOT mission was initially recommended in 2007 in a report by the National Research Council (NRC) called “Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond” for implementation by NASA.

SWOT, like many other NASA and international satellite missions, is a science-focused mission but will have many ancillary benefits to society that extend beyond the research objectives of the mission!

Some of the areas of societal benefit for SWOT include improved flood forecasting and better water resource management through monitoring of changes in water levels of reservoirs and in better knowledge of river discharge. Forty percent of the global population lives within 100 km of the coast, and SWOT will provide better quality data closer to the coasts that can feed into models for improved forecasts of the state of the ocean and some extreme events that may impact people living at the coasts. It will also provide critical information for fisheries management practices and safety at sea.

You can read more about these at https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/applications/applications-areas/. (MS)

[removed]