Earth Observation products for operational irrigation management in the context of the PLEIADeS project

Controlled and efficient agricultural irrigation management is required to avoid negative effects of the increasing world water scarcity and therefore to assure a sustainable production. Within this context, the project ‘Participatory multi-Level EO-assisted tools for Irrigation water management and Agricultural Decision-Support’ (PLEIADeS: http://www.pleiades.es) addressed the efficient and sustainable use of water for food production in water-scarce environments. The project aimed at improving the performance of irrigation schemes by means of a range of measures, made possible through wide space–time coverage of Earth Observation (E.O.) data and interactive networking capabilities of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Project partners, represented by a set of pilot case-studies, included a broad range of conditions characteristic for the European, Southern Mediterranean and American regions. Algorithms for a number of basic products for the estimation of Irrigation Water Requirements (IWR) have been defined in an operational framework. In this study a review of application of these algorithms, applied and validated within different case-studies during the project, is presented.

Research highlights▶ Mature Earth Observation technology ready to be transferred to operational applications in irrigation management. ▶ Development and application of fast inversion techniques of radiative transfer models to estimate the canopy parameters needed for crop water requirement. ▶ F.A.O.-56 physically-based approach validated by using independent measurements of evaporation fluxes.