The recently released fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts and ongoing warming trend in Europe. Specifically Southern Europe as well as the Mediterranean region is likely to suffer from prolonged drought spells in summer in the decades ahead.
Over the last decade, various tools based on Remote Sensing (RS) techniques from satellites to assist land management have been developed. Yet, there are no real products dedicated for water management applications, In the early days of RS, images were mainly used qualitatively, but the increase in accuracy of sensors and especially a better understanding of processes, have evolved in the development of quantitative algorithms to convert raw data into useful information. In recent years an increasing number of Remotely Sensed datasets and algorithms relevant to water managers have emerged. It is now feasible to quantify (i) evapotranspiration and top soil moisture, (ii) precipitation and (iii) changes in groundwater storage based on RS. The challenge now is to upgrade these research algorithms to an operational water management product.
The objective of this project therefore is: Integrating Remotely Sensed precipitation, evapotranspiration and groundwater change information from NASA satellites for diagnosing water management under drought conditions and identify the earth data gaps that could be complemented by future ESA sensors
The project is executed by FutureWater, WaterWatch and Delft Technical University. The project is financially supported by the Netherlands Agency for Aerospace Programmes (NIVR) in the framework of their ‘Prekwalificatie ESA Programma (PEP)’ program.
