From its humble beginnings, the Bacardi-Stockholm Water Foundation Professorship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has championed water conservation efforts and the development and improvement of water quality all over the world.Funded initially by a $2 million endowment from the Bacardi Family Foundation, the Bacardi-Stockholm Water professorship has been continually monitoring the water supply of this planet. The professorship is part of the Bacardi environmental policy, an important mission of the Bacardi family. Today, the current Bacardi-Stockholm Water Professor is now on a mission to further advance water conservation and development research. Tapped by NASA, Professor Dara Entekhabi and a team of scientist will design a satellite that will greatly aid monitoring efforts of the world’s water resources.Prof. Dara Entekhabi’s satellite will be used for the Soil Moisture Active-Passive mission (SMAP) which will be launched in December 2012. The mission’s satellite is slated to gather valuable information from the levels of soil moisture from various locations of the world. The said pieces of information will then be used to analyze and provide precise weather forecasts as well as accurate predictions on the global carbon cycle.Prof. Dara Entekhabi, who is also the director of the Parsons Laboratory for Environmental Science and Engineering in MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, stated that soil moisture is vital in determining the status of water, energy and carbon cycles of the planet. Essential processes such as evaporation and plant transpiration is also linked with soil moisture.The SMAP Mission is based on an earlier satellite project that was also commissioned by NASA and led by Prof. Dara Entekhabi.