Potential of Using Remote Sensing Techniques for Global Assessment of Water Footprint of Crops

Remote Sensing

Mireia Romaguera¹  Arjen Y. Hoekstra¹  Zhongbo Su²  Maarten S. Krol¹ 

[1] Faculty of Engineering Technology, Department of Water Engineering and Management, University of Twente, NL-7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands; E-Mails:;Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, Department of Water Resources, University of Twente, NL-7500 AA Enschede, The Netherlands; E-Mails:

关键词: water footprint;    remote sensing;    global scale;    irrigation;   

DOI  :  10.3390/rs2041177

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Remote sensing has long been a useful tool in global applications, since it provides physically-based, worldwide, and consistent spatial information. This paper discusses the potential of using these techniques in the research field of water management, particularly for ‘Water Footprint’ (WF) studies. The WF of a crop is defined as the volume of water consumed for its production, where green and blue WF stand for rain and irrigation water usage, respectively. In this paper evapotranspiration, precipitation, water storage, runoff and land use are identified as key variables to potentially be estimated by remote sensing and used for WF assessment. A mass water balance is proposed to calculate the volume of irrigation applied, and green and blue WF are obtained from the green and blue evapotranspiration components. The source of remote sensing data is described and a simplified example is included, which uses evapotranspiration estimates from the geostationary satellite Meteosat 9 and precipitation estimates obtained with the Climatic Prediction Center Morphing Technique (CMORPH). The combination of data in this approach brings several limitations with respect to discrepancies in spatial and temporal resolution and data availability, which are discussed in detail. This work provides new tools for global WF assessment and represents an innovative approach to global irrigation mapping, enabling the estimation of green and blue water use.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2010 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.