1. Earth Observation methodologies and open-source WebGIS tool for irrigation management: a case study from Italy M.A. Osann Jochum, A. Belmonte Calera, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha - Instituto de Desarrollo Regional, Albacete – SPAIN G. D’Urso, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II - Dipartimento di Ingegneria Agraria e Agronomia Del Territorio - ITALY F. Vuolo, ARIESPACE, Ercolano (NA) - ITALY P. Nino, F. Lupia, S. Vanino, Istituto Nazionale di Economia Agraria ROMA - ITALY Inside the PLEIADeS project (funded by European VI Framework Program) a tool, System of Participatory Information, Decision support, and Expert knowledge for irrigation and River basin water management (SPIDER) which include a simple GIS-based on “open source” software, aiming at helping water managers to optimize water consumption, has been realized. The project addresses the improvement of water use and management in agriculture through innovative Information Technologies (IT) and the most recent Earth Observation (EO) methodologies. A set of pilot Case Studies represents a sample of the wide range of conditions found in the European and Southern Mediterranean and in the Americas, covering Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Morocco, Mexico, Peru, and Brazil. Calich Basin Cuga Reservoir Participatory multi-Level EO-assisted tools for Irrigation water management and Agricultural Decision-Support http://www.pleiades.es The main aim of the system is introducing spatially distributed information at the required space-time resolution (via EO in a GIS based framework), concerning reliable Crop Water Requirement (CWR) estimation at farm level and delivering this information to the end user (farmer and Water User Association). Crop Water Requirement (ETp) is determined using the so-called crop-coefficient approach (Richard G. Allen “et al.”, FAO paper 56 - 1998), The methodology used for mapping crop coefficients (Kc) in an operational way includes two different EO techniques (both of them requires a calibration to access local conditions): Approach (1) Kc - NDVI (Cuesta et al., 2005) requires the definition of a linear relationship between NDVI (Normalised Differences Vegetation Index), derived from remotely sensed data and Kc. According to the definition of the dual crop coefficient approach, the value of Kc can be split into a first term, Kcb, known as the basal crop coefficient for crop transpiration and a second term, Ke, representing the coefficient for soil evaporation. The values of NDVI have been utilized to calculate the crop coefficient by using the following empirical equation: The analytical approach (2) consists of the direct application of the following definition of the crop coefficient Kc: where ET 0 and ET p are given by Monteith’s schematization. As such, the minimum set of climatic data required includes the air temperature Ta, the relative humidity RH, the wind speed U and the incoming solar radiation K. Vegetation variables (surface albedo, r, the leaf area index, LAI, and the crop height, hc) are estimated from the processing of multispectral imagery. Kc map 19th ESEE Assisi, 15-19 September 2009 Where: Kc is the crop coefficient, which is specific for each crop and their growing status ETo is the reference crop evapotranspiration, defined as the actual evapotranspiration (ET) of a (hypothetical) extensive horizontally flat grass field growing optimally under the given weather conditions. The further step is the calculation of the Irrigation Water Requirement (IWR) as crop water requirement minus of precipitation, The SPIDER SYSTEM M e t h o d o l o g i c a l F r a m e w o r k 3. Agrometeorological data acquisition (Eto, Rain) 2. Images processing (Kc maps) 1. Images acquisition 4. Uploading data into Spider 5. Irrigation Water Requirements calculation - FAO methodology IWR =ETo* Kc - rainfall 6. Data delivering to the end-users Field measurement LAIHeightHeat flux S y s t e m C o m p o n e n t s A b s r a c t Perú Messico Brasile Marocco Turchia EE.UU. Caia (Portugal) Vegas del Guadiana (Spain) Cuga (Italy) PLEIADeS in the World PLEIADeS in Europe Pinios (Greece) In Italy the pilot area is located in the Calich River basin (North-West Sardinia), a site with relevant irrigated areas and with a strong conflict among water uses (industrial, agricultural, civil). Data calibration 21/06/08 11/07/08 27/07/08 12/08/08 28/08/08 Detailed map of IWR at plot level Since the Kc value plays a key role on the IWR calculation experimental values of crop coefficient have been proposed in the literature; due to its simplicity, the crop coefficient approach is still widely used in irrigation scheduling. Improvements on estimation of the Kc based on remote sensing techniques have been developed to produce Kc satellite- derived data using multitemporal/multispectral satellite images. V e g e t a t i o n m o n i t o r i n g Climatic data Vegetation variables The major improvement achieved by the use of EO in the generation of basic Irrigation Advisory Services (IAS) information products like crop coefficients is twofold. Firstly, the spatial coverage is enhanced significantly, both extending to larger areas and providing within-field heterogeneity information. Secondly, the spatially resolved EO data can easily be combined with cadastral information in a geographical information system (GIS), which allows for personalization of the irrigation scheduling recommendation. Conventional IAS provide average irrigation recommendations per crop type, while the space-assisted IAS is able to provide specific recommendations for each individual plot, based on the actual state of that plot. One important consideration for the users is the relevance of “spatial” information given by images about the uniformity of the crop inside each individual plot. This information allows the users to gain confidence in the information, showing in the image the variability of the crop along the plot due to differences on soil, irrigation, and other causes. D i s c u s s i o n P i l o t A r e a s Images acquisition Images downloading Images processing Data deliver to the user Near real time