Using Satellite-based Evapotranspiration Estimation to Characterize Agricultural Irrigation Water Use

Abstract:

The satellite-based evapotranspiration (ET) model permits estimation of water consumption across space and time in a systematic way. Developing tools to monitor water availability and water use is critical to meet future water shortage challenges in the American West. This study applied METRIC (Mapping Evapotranspiration at high Resolution and with Internalized Calibration) to 2001 Landsat imagery to estimate ET of various crop types in Phoenix. The total annual ET estimates are correlated well with the actual water use at the irrigation district level (r=0.99). We further incorporated a crop type map to estimate annual ET for the major crop types in the region, and to examine variability in crop water use among different irrigation districts. Our results show that alfalfa and double crops consume more water than other crop types with mean annual ET estimations of 1300 to 1580 mm/year, and that cotton uses more water (1162 mm/year) than corn (838 mm/year) and sorghum (829 mm/year) as expected. Crop water use varies from one irrigation district to another due to differences in soil quality, water quality, and farming practices. Results from our study suggest that the ET maps derived from METRIC can be used to quantify the spatial distribution of ET and to characterize agricultural water use by crop types at different spatial scales.