Crop water use dynamics over arid and semi-arid croplands in the lower Colorado River Basin

Neda Abbasi, Hamideh Nouri, Pamela Nagler, Kamel Didan, Sattar Chavoshi Borujeni, Armando Barreto-Muñoz, Christian Opp, Stefan Siebert

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Numerous studies have evaluated the application of Remote Sensing (RS) techniques for mapping actual evapotranspiration (ETa) using Vegetation-Index-based (VI-based) and surface energy balance methods (SEB). SEB models computationally require a large effort for application. VI-based methods are fast and easy to apply and could therefore potentially be applied at high resolution; however, the accuracy of VI-based methods in comparison to SEB-based models remains unclear. We tested the ETa computed with the modified 2-band Enhanced Vegetation Index (METEVI2) implemented in the Google Earth Engine–for mapping croplands’ water use dynamics in the Lower Colorado River Basin. We compared METEVI2 with the well-established RS-based products of OpenET (Ensemble, eeMETRIC, SSEBop, SIMS, PT_JPL, DisALEXI and geeSEBAL). METEVI2 was then evaluated with measured ETa from four wheat fields (2017–2018). Results indicated that the monthly ETa variations for METEVI2 and OpenET models were comparable, though of varying magnitudes. On average, METEVI2 had the lowest difference rate from the average observed ETa with 17 mm underestimation, while SIMS had the highest difference rate (82 mm). Findings show that METEVI2 is a cost-effective ETa mapping tool in drylands to track crop water use. Future studies should test METEVI2’s applicability to croplands in more humid regions.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number2259244
JournalEuropean Journal of Remote Sensing
Volume56
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2023

Keywords

  • Crop water consumption
  • Google Earth Engine
  • METEVI2
  • OpenET
  • Remote sensing-based ETa

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Environmental Science
  • Computers in Earth Sciences
  • Atmospheric Science
  • Applied Mathematics

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