Remote Sensing for Water Management: The Drainage Component

Recommended Actions for Implementation

SC I N TI T E S

U SER

Report Ede-Wageningen Expert Consultation Meeting May 15 to 16, 2001

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The Expert Consultation was organized by representatives of the ICID, IPTRID, ILRI, WaterWatch and the World Bank. It was organized as an open discussion between the developers of the Remote Sensing tool (researchers at universities and laboratories) and potential users (staff of river basin authorities, water management institutions, irrigation and drainage organizations).

Remote Sensing for Water Management: The Drainage Component

Report Ede-Wageningen Expert Consultation Meeting May 15 to 16, 2001

Dr Marinus G. Bos Senior irrigation adviser with ILRI, Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Irrigation and Drainage Systems (Kluwer), and Chairman of WG-PERF Dr Safwat Abdel Dayem Drainage Adviser with the WB, and Vice-Chairman of WG-DRAIN Prof Dr Wim Bastiaanssen Director of WaterWatch, and professor at the ITC on RS and GIS for water management Dr Alain Vidal Senior researcher on RS and GIS with CEMAGREF, task manager with IPTRID and Chairman of WG-ILWRM

Abstract An expert consultation was organized on 15 and 16 May 2001 in Ede-Wageningen to synthesize the state-of-the-art of remote sensing technology for assessing the performance of existing irrigation and drainage schemes, as well as the need for drainage to combat soil salinity in irrigated lands. The attainable accuracy with which parameters can be measured was agreed upon. Drainage related parameters can be estimated with an average accuracy of 78% at a confidence level of 95%. Water and crop related parameters such as land use, irrigated area, water logging and crop evapotranspiration have an accuracy between 80 to 85%. There is more research required on soil-related parameters: in particular to determine soil moisture and soil salinity. Efforts should be made to develop algorithms that are more robust, and to design user-friendly tools. These are needed to help water managers in their decision making of water allocation and to increase the productivity of water. Considering that the accuracies of drainage related parameters are acceptable, and the costs being affordable, the workshop concluded that the core activity in remote sensing sciences during the next decade should focus on making products. The remote sensing has failed to develop user driven products, because the remote sensing scientist, instead of the theme specialists themselves, often led projects. A product-oriented approach is needed that produces easily accessible information to clients. This requires a long-term business strategy. The expert consultation recommends a capacity building program including e-commerce, training courses and software development. Capacity building programs should be imbedded in new demonstration and implementation projects. Project ideas have been inventoried and formulated.

Frequently used abbreviations

ADB ASTER AVHRR CBERS CEMAGREF EARSEL EOS FAO GIS ICID IEC IGARSS ILRI IPTRID IRS ISPRS ITC IWMI Kluwer MODIS NOAA NGO PAN SPC RS TIR TM WB WG-DRAIN WG-ILWRM WG-PERF Asian Development Bank Advanced Space-borne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite Institut de Recherche pour l'Ingnierie de l'Agriculture et de l'Environnement European Association of Remote Sensing Earth Observing System Food and Agriculture Organization Geographic Information System International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage International Executive Council Meeting of the ICID International International Institute for Land reclamation and Improvement International Program on Technological research in Irrigation and Drainage Indian Remote Sensing Satellite International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Science International Water Management Institute Kluwer Academic Publishers Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Non-Governmental Organization Panchromatic Spectral Remote Sensing (by use of satellite images) Thermal InfraRed Thematic Mapper World Bank ICID Working Group on Drainage ICID Working Group on Integrated Land and Water Resource Management ICID Working Group on Performance Assessment of Irrigation and Drainage

Table of contents 1 2 3 Background ............................................................................................................ 7 Rationale ................................................................................................................ 8 State-of-the-art ....................................................................................................... 9 3.1 Satellite systems ............................................................................................. 9 3.2 The drainage parameters .............................................................................. 11 3.2 Attainable accuracies .................................................................................... 14 3.3 What did we do wrong? ................................................................................ 17 3.4 Costs ............................................................................................................. 18 3.5 The opportunities........................................................................................... 20 3.6 Alternative solutions ........................................................................................... 23 4 Capacity building .................................................................................................. 23 4.1 Exchange of know-how................................................................................. 23 4.2 Institutional development ............................................................................... 24 4.3 Software ........................................................................................................ 25 5 Conclusions and recommendations...................................................................... 25 6 References ........................................................................................................... 26 Appendix 1: List of participants .................................................................................... 28 Appendix 2: Programme of the Consultation................................................................ 30 Appendix 3: Format for projects................................................................................... 32 A3.1 Argentina....................................................................................................... 33 A3.2 China............................................................................................................. 36 A3.4 France ........................................................................................................... 38 A3.6 Iran................................................................................................................ 40 A3.7 Malaysia ........................................................................................................ 43 A3.9 Turkey ........................................................................................................... 46 Appendix 4: Examples of remote sensing projects related to irrigation and drainage systems conducted in the past..................................................................................... 50 Appendix 5: Conclusions of scientific presentations..................................................... 52

Background

The World Vision of Water for Food and Rural Development (Hofwegen and Svendsen, 2000) showed that by 2025 the world population would increase by 2 billion inhabitants to a total of approximately 8 billion people. The water requirement critical to livelihood including food production is 1700 m3/capita. This water is not available for everybody; nearly one-third of the worlds population will live in regions that will experience severe water scarcity (Figure 1).
More than 10000 19% No data 1% 0 - 1700 10%

5000 - 10000 8%

3000 - 5000 13%

1700 - 3000 49%

Figure 1; Distribution of world population among economies grouped by annual freshwater resources in cubic meters per capita (World Bank 1999).

In order to meet future demands for food, the world food production should have an annual growth rate of about 3%. Presently, the total harvested area is about 1600 million ha. This harvested area could be expanded while harvesting the same area more than once per year is feasible at certain places. Recent FAO assessments put the worlds area of potentially suitable cropland at some 3200 million ha (FAO, 1996). Agriculture in areas with artificial water management (irrigation and drainage) contribute to about 50% of present food and fiber production (Table 1). To improve the productivity (in terms of crop yield per m3 water consumed) water resources need to be more alertly managed. New tools have to be developed to facilitate integrated water resources management. Managers have to be able to assess to which extend targets are met and evaluate their strategy. This management process requires an advanced quantitative approach and a well-thought data acquisition system. Table 1; Overview of word food and fiber production (FAO 1996; Smedema et al 2000) Harvested area (million ha) Rain-fed only Rain-fed plus drainage Irrigation plus drainage Total: 1350 250 1600 100 250 350 Percentage contribution production 50 % 10 % 40 % 100 % to

As shown in Table 1, agriculture with artificial water management accounts for about 50% of the world food production although it covers with 350 million ha only 22 % of the cropped lands. This implies that the irrigation and drainage sector has chances to significantly increase the worlds food production. Irrigation and drainage schemes are, however, in many cases performing at an unsatisfactory level. Irrigation and drainage performance indicators are useful tools to keep monitor and assess water use and changing groundwater tables (Bos, 1997). The framework of performance assessment is nowadays recognized as an opportunity to determine the necessary strategy and implement appropriate actions to get more productivity from water as a scarce commodity. The level of detail information and data required to manage water resources properly, depends on the user of the data. Whereas researchers like a maximum of detailed hydrological and agronomical data, managers need only performance indicators to evaluate whether they meet their targets. Politicians are used to cope with simplified data sets on essential aspects. Relative to irrigation, little is known on the need and impact of drainage on crop production and on the environment. Drainage research was conducted world-wide at small experimental plots. Considerable knowledge was established on design, construction and maintenance of drainage systems at farm scale. Knowledge on the long-term effect of agricultural drainage at the hydrological processes at regional scale is, however, limited. Soil salinity, for example, is a major constraint for agricultural production in the arid and semi arid zones. Field data collection and measurement on drainage rates, groundwater table fluctuations, salinity, waterlogging and crop growth are time consuming and expensive. Hence, there is a need to develop a low-cost methodology to monitor irrigation and drainage systems in a spatial-distributed manner, complementary to classical point data collection. Remote sensing in conjunction with in situ data measurement can meet this data requirement (Bastiaanssen and Bos, 1999), and needs to be explored further.

Rationale

The use of satellite images to support land and water management is technically possible since the end of the seventies. Unfortunately, a breakthrough never occurred. The success of remote sensing (RS) applications in land and water management is limited, and, for example, far behind the successes of RS applications in weather and climate studies. Overselling of the technique caused this, among others, and by the low attention universities have given to develop remote sensing algorithms that can be adopted by the commercial sector. Because accurate, timely and cost-effective information for the planning and monitoring of drainage systems are badly needed, it is recommended to review the possible contribution of advanced space information technologies in irrigated and drained agriculture. A meeting between representatives of three ICID Working Groups (Performance Assessment of Irrigation and Drainage, Integrated Land and Water Resource Management, and Drainage) and of IPTRID, ILRI, and the World Bank at Cape Town, October 24. 2000, concluded that time is ripe to boost the use of the remote sensing technology to quantify drainage needs, for strategic planning of drainage in an integrated water resources management manner and for monitoring and evaluation. A significant remote sensing literature database has been build up during the last 20 years, but the number of case studies lag far behind. There is a need for consensus on the scientific achievements made to date and to chalk out a strategy with consultants to 8

explore the possibilities to increase the number of case studies. This requires an open discussion between the developers of the tool (researchers at universities and laboratories), potential users (staff of river basin authorities, water management institutions, irrigation and drainage organizations) and international consultants. A roundtable consultation is suitable for discussing the state of the art and exchange world-wide experience in order to develop an approach and guidelines for the practical use of this technology in land drainage. An earlier Expert Consultation Meeting was conducted by FAO in Montpellier during November 1993 (Vidal et al, 1994). The major recommendations of the working group on drainage and salinity monitoring and control were: Operational methods must be proposed by drainage experts before the end of the century. Initiatives should arise from the own discipline as they best know the problems and know where remote sensing can contribute Technology transfer should be pursued with appropriate training of local staff Satellite images should be available at the time of occurrence of the diagnostic event Surface waterlogging (ponding) should be distinct from high water table

Although the Montpellier Meeting covered essentially the same themes, most of the recommendations made are not fulfilled. In order to keep the dialogue going, a new expert meeting was organized. The participants of the Ede-Wageningen Meeting represented a broad group of academics. Representatives of the scientific community (no. 8), consultancy firms (no. 7), decision maker and water policy makers (no. 4) and donors (no. 1) assembled. A list of participants is presented in Appendix 1. The 20 experts represented 14 different countries spread over 4 continents. This report describes the highlights and the actions of the two-day plenary meeting. A program of the meeting is attached in Appendix 2.

Terms of Reference Ede-Wageningen Meeting To synthesize the present state-of-the-art of remote sensing technology and project tools for developing a reliable and cost-effective methodology for assessing the performance of existing irrigation and drainage schemes, as well as the need for drainage to combat soil salinity in irrigated lands. The effort should lead to international strengthened forces and collaborative efforts to test and disseminate the methodology in new regional scale drainage pilot projects, having strong local capacity building components.

3 3.1

State-of-the-art Satellite systems

Remote sensing in irrigation and drainage related studies can be broadly grouped into three different categories:

a Monitoring of irrigation and drainage processes across larger areas b Identification of local crop classes, salinity hazards and crop yield c Surveying field layout, plot boundaries and legislative aspects
Category (a) requires repetitive image collection, and is therefore often based on lower resolution images (250 to 1100 m) with a potential repeat cycle of one day. Category (b) is based on multi-spectral images designed for earth resources monitoring (15 to 30 m). 9

Category (c) needs the involvement of very high-resolution images (1 to 6 m) suitable to detect small objects on the earth surface. A few images per year are sufficient to apply categories (b) and (c). The sensor onboard of the satellite is a radiometer that measures electromagnetic radiation in small and finite parts of the spectrum. Some radiometers have only a few bands (IKONOS has 4 narrow spectral bands and 1 wide band) whereas others have many more bands that enable them to measure in a broader part of the spectrum (e.g. MODIS has 36 narrow spectral bands). The visible bands are found in the range between 0.4 and 0.7 m. The blue band has the lowest wavelength (0.43 to 0.48 m), followed by the green (0.51 to 0.56 m) and red band (0.62 to 0.76 m). The near-infrared bands measure in the 0.7 to 1.5 m, and the thermal-infrared in the region between 8 to 15 m. The thermal-infrared region between 0.3 to 3.0 m is not related to reflected solar radiation, but to natural emission of radiation. Some information on basic characteristics of today's satellite systems is provided in Table 2. More background information on technical specifications is found on the world wide web of the various providers of the satellite data. The images of category (c) are more costly per unit land than for categories "a" and "b". Most category "a" images are free of charge available. Due to national politics on data freeware in the USA, a world-wide tendency has emerged to sharply reduce the costs of satellite images falling into category "b". ASTER images which represent the state of the art can be ordered through the world wide web without charges. Most countries have a national point of contact from where these images can be obtained. To shorten the delivery time of fresh images, space agencies are creating more electronic data archives from where data can be directly selected, viewed and ordered. In several cases, it is feasible to download the data, which considerably reduces the time delay between moment of acquisition and moment of processing and interpretation. The link between sensors and potential applications on the basis of the presentations by the experts (Appendix 5) and a literature search done earlier by Bastiaanssen (1998) and Vidal (2000) is further worked out in Table 3. Also Appendix 4 with a selection of remote sensing research studies conducted in the past has been used for the preparation of Table 3.

Table 2: Major characteristics of operational earth resources satellites potentially suitable for irrigation and drainage studies Platform Sensor Spatial resolution (m) 1 (pan), 4 (spc) 2, 10 (pan) 10 (pan), 20 (spc), 1100 m (spc.) 6 (pan), 23.5 (spc) 15 (spc), 30 (spc), 90 (tir) 15 (pan), 30 (spc), 60 (tir) 80, 160 250, 500, 1000 (spc) 1100 (spc) Temporal resolution (days) 3 on request 26 5 24 4 to 16 16 26 1 0.5 Image dimensions
(km)

Price (US$/km2) 39 30 1.14 0.001 0.25 Free 0.018 0.007 Free Free

IKONOS-1 SPIN-2 SPOT-4 IRS-1D IRS-1D Terra Landsat-7 CBERS-2 Terra NOAA

XS WIFS LISS ASTER ETM MODIS AVHRR

15 40 60 806 141 km 60 185 120 2330 2800

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Table 3: Sensors or satellites that produce images suitable for irrigation and drainage management Application Satellite and sensor Category plot boundaries irrigation/drainage canals cartographic information micro-scale salinity features micro-scale waterlogging land use irrigated area crop identification soil salinity water logging Leaf Area Index potential evapotranspiration crop growth crop yield crop evapotranspiration root zone soil moisture floods surface soil moisture surface roughness crop growth crop yield crop evapotranspiration root zone soil moisture floods potential evapotranspiration precipitation IKONOS, SPIN, IRS (pan), SPOT (pan) a

Landsat, SPOT, IRS, ASTER, CBERS

Landsat, ASTER, CBERS

Radarsat

NOAA-AVHRR, TERRA-MODIS

TRMM, METEOSAT

3.2

The drainage parameters

The scientists participating to the expert consultation were invited to present the main outcomes of their own research work. Table 4 provides an overview of the participants who gave a presentation on mapping of irrigation and drainage performance. There were also other presentations dealing with product-oriented approaches (Alain Vidal and Albert van Dijk), however, these introductions focused on strategies to be followed, rather than on salient findings from research projects. It goes beyond the objective of this report to summarize all research activities and their outcomes. Instead, Appendix 5 provides a selection of remote sensing projects executed in irrigation and drainage systems in various countries. Appendix 6 reveals the conclusion sections of the individual lectures given during the expert consultation. Section 3.2 only summarizes the headlines and draws some generic conclusions on where we stand in the overall progress achieved during the last 10 years.

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Table 4: Results from research studies presented during the round table conference

Country Pakistan Pakistan China Pakistan Pakistan Brazil Argentina USA Mexico

Category b b a,b b,c a,b a,b c b b

Research Soil salinity assessment Salinity as a hazard Agricultural water management Drainage systems in relation to salinity Drainage and deep percolation Irrigation performance and drainage effluent Land and water information systems Leaf Area Index and soil moisture Soil salinity mapping

Speaker Dunia Tabet Daniel Zimmer Li Jiren Bernard Vincent Mobin ud-Din Ahmad Ricardo Brito Javier Zuleta Jiaguo Qi Leonardo Pulido

Land use and topographical information High-resolution images are required to describe land use and to detect changes in crop types and irrigated area. Crop classes have to be known for individual plots (ground truth) to verify the legitimacy of crop cultivation and verifying the right to irrigate. Water rights can be more than a century old. IKONOS and SPIN images with 1 to 4 m resolution can be used to solve legal conflicts on land ownerships. Waterlogging and salinity tend to occur in the vicinity of earthen irrigation (conveyance) canals. Panchromatic images from Landsat (15 m), SPOT (10 m) and IRS (6 m) can be used to detect canals and survey the effect of water leakage on the surrounding area. Crop acreage is primary information needed for water allocation and irrigation scheduling. Over-irrigation (more water supply than consumed by the crop) leads to increased drainage flows. This may develop into a waterlogging (and salinity) problem. Accurate information on the irrigated area can save scarce irrigation water. SPOT, IRS and Landsat multi-spectral data can be used for classifying cropped fields and the type of crop. The overall accuracy is about 85 %. However, large differences in the classification performance of individual crops occur (Bastiaanssen 1998). The spectral information from irrigated fruit trees cannot be discriminated very well. The spacing between fruit trees and the herbaceous layer between the trees affects the total spectral behavior. Perennial fruit trees also have different ages and sizes, which makes them difficult to differentiate. Soil salinity Statistics about the extent of salt affected soils, and the evolution of salinity with time, are scarce and often unreliable. Soil salinization is far from being a uniform process. Salinity can develop both; naturally and from interventions in the water cycle through irrigation. Salt only moves through the movement of soil moisture. Thus, the time-depth behavior of salt is highly dynamic. Longer time series of measurements are required to describe salinity as a hazard to crop production. Although most remote sensing studies on salinity were conducted with SPOT and Landsat, there is a new trend to use the very highresolution satellites to describe local salinization processes better. The French participants to the Expert Consultation proposed to conceive salinity more as a hazard than as an environmental variable. From the viewpoint of costs, the constraint of a satellite image is that only a few snapshots can be taken for the description of the salinity. The inherent problem is to relate a one-time satellite snapshot with a dynamic hazard. 12

The dominant ions determine the type of salt and the colour of the soil. Colour variability reflects the process of soil salinization and the relationship with the electro-magnetic spectrum. Neutral salinity has white salts, alcalinity is black and sodicity are hard soils. Alkaline soils absorb more radiation than sodic soils. Carbonates can be better described with the red band (Li Jiren, 1997). Chloride anions can be best described with the blue and green bands. This implies that soil salinity in the root zone cannot be quantitatively described by means of red and near-infrared bands (e.g. Tabet et al., 1998; Vincent et al., 1996). A simple normalization can be established by dividing the reflectance by the total reflectance of the blue, green and red bands. Spectral reflectance in the red and nearinfrared bands can be used to describe salt crusts manifested at the surface. Typical map scales are 1:20 000 to 1:50 000. Soil salinity classification being feasible from red and infrared bands is: No salinity 25% of the area affected by salinity 25 to 50% of the area affected 50 % or more of the area affected by salinity Soil salinity can technically be expressed in; Residual Sodium Carbonate (RSC), Electric Conductivity (EC) and Sodium Absorption Ratio (SAR), while farmers may have other definitions. For large irrigated areas, affected by non-sodic salinity and mostly covered by a single crop (wheat or maize), reasonable correlations (60 % accuracy) exist between soil electric conductivity at 0-30 cm and 30-60 cm depth at one hand, and the green, red and near-infared spectral bands at the other hand (Brena et al., 1993). Pulido et al. (1998) developed regression models between the electric conductivity and Thematic Mapper bands 2 (green), 3 (red) and 4 (near-infrared). The correlation coefficients vary between 0.64 and 0.86 depending on crop type (wheat, cotton and sorghum) and the selected irrigation district. RS cannot be used to estimate the depth to the groundwater table, unless it is within a few decimeters beneath the land surface (Bakker and Bastiaanssen, 1999). In specific environments and under certain circumstances, crop yield is dominantly controlled by soil salinity. In these cases, crop yield can be used as an indicator of salinity. Soil moisture and waterlogging Surface reflectance throughout the whole spectrum is low if water is standing at, or is in the vicinity of, the surface. A tendency of lower reflectance at increasing wavelength is usually witnessed for open water bodies, and this makes the classification of ponding layers relatively easy and reliable. Soil moisture can be determined in two different manners: surface soil moisture by means of a radar beam which penetrates through the vegetation and is scattered back after penetrating a few centimeter into the soil, root zone soil moisture as inversely related from the surface energy balance, which describes the moisture content related to root water uptake. The Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) signal is highly affected by soil roughness and vegetation cover. Optical remote sensing is sensitive primarily to the total amount of green vegetation while microwave remote sensing is sensitive to soil moisture and salinity. Synergy of SAR and optical images could provide a better estimate of soil moisture in vegetation area. The accuracy can be strongly improved by a two-layer backscattering model (Sano et al., 1998; Moran et al 2002). Typical soil moisture classes that can be detected are (i) dry, (ii) patchy, (iii) moist and (iv) wet. However, microwave radar beam 13

data is not operationally available with a high spatial resolution on satellites, and yet is not suitable for implementation in drainage studies. Future sensor will make it feasible though. Despite that root zone soil moisture is an empirical function of the evaporative fraction of the surface energy balance, it has shown to give reasonable good agreement with field data collected in different climates and soil types (USA, Spain, Pakistan, Niger). Soil moisture classes with 5 volume percent of moisture interval can be accurately classified. The relationship ought to be soil type dependent, and a correction term of porosity is included. Similarly, logarithmic relationships between Crop Water Stress Index (Jackson et al., 1977) and soil moisture have been developed and are applied in China (Yu and Tian, 1997; Kondo et al., 1998). Water balance terms Actual evapotranspiration can be estimated with an acceptable accuracy in an operational manner using, for example, the Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land (SEBAL). When combining actual evapotranspiration with soil moisture changes in the root zone, rain gauge data and canal water delivery data, the opportunity arises to compute the drainage flow as a residual of the water balance (Bastiaanssen et al., 2001). This drainage component includes also a percolation component, but it is ultimately all water that needs to be drained from a given area to prevent excess water storage. The computation of drainage volumes is very important for the design of surface drains and sub-surface drainage systems. If this surplus water from the water budget is not evacuated through, for example, a sub-surface drainage system, rising groundwater tables and ultimately water logged conditions may arise. Crop growth Different approaches to compute crop growth have been developed. Simple empirical relationships with spectral vegetation indices or the Leaf Area Index perform well. However, these relationships need to be calibrated with extensive ground data sets for every season again and again (Wiegand et al., 1994). Physically based models on the basis of photosythetical active radiation and soil moisture availability for the conversion of radiation to dry matter production are nowadays developed and tested. Crop yields of fruit crops (mango, banana, grapes), grains (wheat, rice) and trade crops (tea, cotton) can be predicted with 85% accuracy. A general problem in applying remote sensing for crop growth and evapotranspiration is that a continuous set of high-resolution satellite images is required. The higher resolution of the scale of Landsat (30 m) is necessary to discriminate crops. The availability of Landsat images is an uncertain factor due to a revisit frequency of 16 days and the chance on cloud contamination on the images. Low-resolution images (1100 m) are easier to create time series, because they have daily overpasses. The limitation of MODIS and NOAA is that they cannot detect individual fields. Fusion techniques for merging low and high-resolution images need to be developed.

3.2

Attainable accuracies

One of the explanations that remote sensing is not commonly used in water resources management is that there is disagreement on the attainable of collected data. Fifteen participants of the Expert Consultation who are scientifically involved in experimental remote sensing have given their view on the accuracy of retrieving drainage related parameters from remote sensing data (Table 5). 14

Table 5: Accuracy of remote sensing parameters in drainage estimated by the EdeWageningen Expert Consultation at a 95% confidence interval. The range of accuracy indicated by individual scientists is added Thematic parameter Accuracy Standard deviation accuracy assessment (%) 16 8 8 11 25 7 3 19 18 8 12 12 8 9 9 12 19 3 38 Coefficient of variation accuracy assessment (%) 20 10 10 16 39 8 4 25 28 10 16 14 10 10 11 15 19 3 38

Topographical characteristics Land use Land wetness (drought index) Soil moisture (surface) Soil moisture (root zone) Waterlogging Drainage from area Salinity occurrence on surface Soil salinity Irrigated area Crop identification Reference ET Potential ET (crop coefficient) Actual ET LAI Biomass growth Crop yield Water rights Soil erosion AVERAGE

(%) 81 84 78 70 64 87 78 77 63 85 78 81 79 83 80 79 72 93 68 78

The accuracies are related to a single event, i.e. the day of image acquisition, and to field measurements that are usually conducted at the plot scale. The errors have usually a normal distribution, and at averaging over time or across the space domain, the error for a longer period or a larger area cancels out. The accuracy at a 95% confidence interval for a single event is presented. Although there is a no unified opinion among the experts (because the accuracy of the remote sensing product depends also on the algorithm chosen), the average assessment is a first order approximation on how experts generally experience the progress of the technique (Table 5). The range of accuracy assessments among the experts varied significantly, and the coefficient of variation in the accuracy assessment is added to the table. The outcome of Table 5 is that drainage related parameters can be estimated with an average accuracy of 78%. The range of individual thematic parameters lies between 63 to 92 % and this is a wide variability. The practical meaning is that certain parameters can be assessed with significantly more accuracy than other parameters. The ranking of accuracies for the thematic parameter discussed at the meeting is provided in Figure 2. Drainage engineers should assess whether that is good enough and acceptable for them. Considering the lack of data available to make strategic planning and to monitor the adequacy of drainage systems, the meeting felt overall that an accuracy of 78% or more is good enough for implementation of the remote sensing technology. This is partially based on the fact that several of the bio-and soil physical parameters elaborated in Table 5 can only be measured at experimental farms being equipped with special instruments. 15

Irrigation and drainage engineers have hardly access to these parameters at the regional scale, so any reasonable estimate is a big gain.

Accuracy at 95% confidence interval (%)

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Topographical characteristics Crop identification Irrigated area Soil salinity Water logging Biomass growth Land wetness (drought index) Drainage from area Salinity occurrence on surface Potential ET (crop coefficient) Soil moisture (surface) Soil moisture (root zone) Reference ET Water rights Crop yield Actual ET LAI Soil erosion Land use

Figure 2: Accuracy of remotely sensed irrigation and drainage related parameters in ascending order

Land use related information (water rights, waterlogging, irrigated area) can according to the group of experts with a good accuracy (85 %) be classified. Land use, evapotranspiration (actual and reference) and LAI are regarded as being feasible (80 %). Parameters with the lowest accuracy are all soil related parameters and physical variables (salinity, moisture, erosion). These need more attention in the research laboratories, although they may be applied in areas with data scarcity. The same conclusion on low accuracy associated to soil salinity mapping was drawn earlier by Bos (2001), who estimated the approximate accuracy as 40%. The agreement among the remote sensing scientists is not equal for all parameters. Their views are wrapped-up in Figure 3. Generally speaking, an inverse relationship between Figsure 2 and 3 exist; there is little variability in the expert judgements on the parameters which can be mapped with a good accuracy. Disputes and disagreements were found among the experts when the parameters soil salinity, soil erosion and soil moisture in the root zone were evaluated.

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Based on the above : It is recommended that research institutes and universities should give more attention to the mapping of soil related parameters such as salinity, moisture and erosion. Water and crop related parameter are judged to have more confidence, and could be used in drainage studies. Salinity mapping is evaluated with an accuracy of 63%, which implies it is only feasible in areas where field data is not available or less accurate.

45.0 40.0 Coefficient of variation (%) 35.0 30.0 25.0 20.0 15.0 10.0 5.0 0.0 Actual ET Land use LAI Irrigated area Soil salinity Water rights Biomass growth Reference ET Topographical characteristics Drainage from area Water logging Soil erosion Crop yield Potential ET (crop coefficient) Salinity occurrence on surface Land wetness (drought index) Soil moisture (root zone) Crop identification Soil moisture (surface)

Figure 3: Degree of agreement among remote sensing scientists on attainable accuracy of remotely sensed irrigation and drainage parameters

3.3

What did we do wrong?

Despite the fact that the accuracy of the land and water parameters are reasonable to good (average 78 % accuracy), the technique has failed to become a common ingredient of information technology for water management. The Expert Consultation has discussed plausible factors underlying this development, and recognizes the following issues: Remote sensing has emerged more as research tool than a user driven product. Many remote sensing applications in the past were led by the remote sensing specialists, instead of the theme specialists themselves. Since the research was not meant for users, the research tool has never made attractive and user friendly A product-oriented approach is necessary to satisfy clients. Clients are not interested in studying images, but more in the information and the confidence they can retrieve from it. Clients are also critical as they have been let down in the past The remote sensing product should be easily accessible, e.g. on-line available. At this moment, there are not many systems that supports a customer in finding reports of 17

remote sensing studies and desks with databases filled with raw and interpreted satellite data Potential customers dont know about the progress and need to be informed about the possibilities This category of persons dont read scientific remote sensing literature. This implies that publications should appear in water-related magazines. The accuracy is often hidden and not attached to the remote sensing data delivery. This makes customers doubting whether they can use the data. The results of research projects have too often site or crop specific. The technical solutions are then undermined by lack of practicality, as they cannot be transferred to other case studies. A move from empirical to physically-based solutions is necessary There is no financial investment from the commercial sector. Consultants mainly operate by small, subsidized projects. Investments need to be made to create a product, and convince customers. The commercial sector has failed to do so. A longterm business type of marketing strategy is required. Most academic remote sensing researchers are evaluated on their personal research publication lists, and not on their efforts to implement the technology Apart from a few exceptions, drainage experts, remote sensing scientists and consultants have no common dialogue. Apparently, drainage (and water management) experts are not impressed by the work of remote sensing experts. Drainage experts should define their demands better. The technique was very expensive to apply. The price for computers, however, has collapsed and their computational speed is rapidly increasing. Also the prices for images have started to go down, and several space agencies have announced to provide the data virtually free. This makes the technology cost effective to implement (see Section 3.4). The costs of land reclamation (drainage), is very high with respect to the monitoring technique that can prevent waterlogging. Hence, spending resources in monitoring is attractive. The capacity building in remote sensing and GIS is a weak. At the remote sensingirrigation-drainage interface, there are very limited possibilities to receive training.

3.4

Costs

Irrigation and drainage managers and policy makers are expected to use advanced information technologies only if they get better results at equal or lower costs. The value of remote sensing data relies therefore on the balance between costs and benefits (accuracy). The costs of remote sensing cannot be generalized. Different applications exist, the remote sensing parameters have different scales (both in spatial and temporal detail) and the price of satellite images diverge between 39 US$/km2 to virtual free (only some shipping costs are charged for TERRA data). The salary cost in the country where the images are processed varies between a few to hundreds of US dollars per day. Particularly these salaries (and commercial rates per man-day) determine the final costs. Experts may have higher rates than technicians, but their experience can beneficially affect the quality of the product and reduce the time lag between image delivery and product delivery. It also matters, whether a water resources department is investing in an own GIS/RS unit or contracts an external consultant for such activity. In the first case, a heavy initial investment in hardware and software plus education is required. It takes some years to get benefits. Hiring consultants avoids the need to recruit experts and you can hire them only for limited tasks. All these aspects of wages and laboratory investment affects the final costs of the products, and products cannot be easily compared. Despite of this, it is appropriate to indicate the non-remote sensing community of the range of costs. Table 6 was made to give guidance on costs. 18

Furthermore, several applications are increasingly cost-effective per unit area if a larger area is covered. Figure 4 demonstrates the price for an annual irrigation performance monitoring with a monthly time interval. If the images are processed in a country like The Netherlands, the price per hectare is approximately US$ 0.80/ha (1 Euro) for an irrigation scheme of 10,000 ha, but the price drops down to US$ 0.08/ha for an area of 500,000 ha. This suggests that remote sensing techniques are economically attractive for larger areas.

Table 6: Total costs related to image processing and interpretation for drainage related parameters. Image procurement, labour and overhead is included Parameter Country of image processing Number of images used Costs US$/ha 2 Landsat images 4 CBERS images 3 SPOT images 1 IRS image 50 NOAA images 1 Landsat image 1 Landsat image 1 IKONOS image 2 SPOT images 3 Landsat images 12 NOAA images 12 NOAA images 80 NOAA images 24 NOAA images 0.8 0.003 2.5 0.0002 0.003 2.0 0.007 0.31 1.0 0.005 1.0 0.5 0.005 0.012

Soil salinity

Mexico China France India Soil moisture China France The Netherlands Land use Argentina France Sri Lanka Actual ET and crop yield The Netherlands France Sri Lanka India

Obviously, the costs for all stages of image analysis in China are very low. This is related to the fact that (i) China has own image receiving facilities which can be used to study vast areas, (ii) China has its own earth resources satellite (CBERS), (iii) software is inexpensive and (iv) wages are relatively low. According to the estimations, the cheapest application in China is land wetness monitoring throughout the year (US$ 0.003/ha) and crop yield mapping is with US$ 0.22/ha the most expensive application. The same remarks made for China apply to Sri Lanka and India.

19

1.200

1.000

0.800

0.600

0.400

0.200

i 0.000
10000 1000000

C over ar i ha ed ea n

Figure 4: Commercial prize to monitor the annual cycle of irrigation and drainage performance with monthly intervals.

3.5

The opportunities

Considering that crop and land use classifications together with water balance parameters such as evapotranspiration and drainage rates can be obtained with the desired confidence, it is a logical consequence to conclude that demonstration and implementation projects have to be initiated. Such projects can be continuations of the more research style of projects presented in Appendix 4. A demonstration type of project should have substantial subsidy to let potential users build up experience. There should be minimal room for research. Financial damage to the client - if he/she is unsatisfied should be excluded as far as possible. An implementation project is usually a continuation of a demonstration project where the end-users cover the majority of the costs. The Expert Consultation advises to start tandem projects both the demonstration and implementation phase in one project on the following topics: Field scale surveying of changes in land use and water use This section discusses the survey of changes in irrigation and drainage systems only. It includes database development of areas having water rights, surveying areas under irrigation, mapping of sub-surface drainage systems, crop types and waterlogging at the surface. The satellite monitoring takes place at field scale and will be done ones or twice a year. It is not expected that soil salinity can be seen, but if the soil has been degraded, salts may manifest at the land surface towards the end of a canal closure period. The changes in waterlogging, surface salinity, land use and crop acreages are suitable indicators of sustainability. The hypothesis behind this concept is that with increasing irrigation and/or drainage problems, farmers will abandon the field or change the crop to a more salt tolerant type (for instance wheat to oilseed). Sub-regional scale monitoring of irrigation and drainage processes Water Resources Departments or Irrigation Departments usually do not bear responsibility for field scale (on farm) processes. Their main interest is on monitoring aggregated water 20

use at the sub-regional level such as for groups of surface drains, polders, conveyance canals etc. Monthly parameters such as soil moisture, drainage rate and crop growth should be deduced from low-resolution images. That together with ancillary ground truth will whether the management target is met. The demonstration- and implementation projects should be executed with well-defined partnership, and all stakeholders should be involved (Figure 5). The client should be a typical Irrigation and Drainage Department (in some countries this is a task of the Water Resources Department). The consultant should use his expertise on remote sensing and irrigation or drainage projects to develop (together with the client) a tool that satisfies the clients demands. The client needs to be involved in an early stage and should define the data product together with the consultant. The type of projects foreseen should have a component in which algorithms developed at universities and research centers are tested on their robustness. Often, models perform unsatisfactory when they are applied outside the environment where they have been developed. This testing is the responsibility of engineers. The 'engineer' and the 'consultant' should translate the language of the academic scientist into language that can be understood by the clients. The consultant should be the driving force behind the cycle of study, execution, control and maintenance.

Researcher: Develop algorithm

Agency: Data management

Engineers: Enhance robustness

Consultant: User friendly tool

Figure 5: Suggested tasks and partnerships in new remote sensing oriented demonstration and implementation projects on RS for irrigation and drainage management

Vidal (2001) suggested RS data products along five different categories: Information and communication products products enabling longer term (strategic) planning products enabling medium term planning products enabling short tem (operational) planning warning products. These products have to undergo a certain flow path from information products via the decision making process and key success factors (knowledge, norms) to strategy. In order to strengthen the marketing of remote sensing technology and to let Water Resources Departments profit from it by means of a more alert management tool, it was suggested to compile a list of projects which meet the criteria and purpose outlined in this section. A 21

summary of project ideas as discussed during the consultation is presented in Table 7. Several of these projects were described in a project formulation form (Appendix 3).

Table 7: Projects and project ideas that are examples of embedding remote sensing science in water management projects with an emphasis on the drainage component Title Country Purpose Monitoring crop irrigation and drainage demand Soil salinity as a function of changes in soil properties, water management and population density Integrated irrigation and drainage performance Sustainability of irrigated area, detection of salt crust. Combining various hydrological and soil related parameters in digital databases Water balance studies leading to a salt balance. Environmental impact Monitoring land reclamation and drainage Partners General Department of Irrigation, ILRI Cemagref, IWHR Beijing, HHRB Yinchuan, ILRI, IHE Delft

Improving water Argentina management by use of RS and GIS, Mendoza Province Evaluation of soil salinity China in the Ninxian Province related to changes in land use Irrigation and drainage monitoring in deltas Egypt

Monitoring if high levels of France soil salinity in irrigated areas of arid and semi-arid climatic zones Knowledge GIS for water India management

Ministery of Water Resources, ILRI WaterWatch Cemagref, WaterWatch, CNES, Spotimage

CSSRI, CEMAGREF

Performance assessment Iran of irrigated agriculture and the effect of drainage effluent on the environment Agricultural development Malaysia in lowland peat swamps

Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Agriculture, ILRI, Waterwatch

Groundwater irrigation developments

Syria

Establishing an Turkey information base for water management in the GAP Region

Department of Irrigation and Drainage PS Konsultant LAWOO Retrospectively Ministries of Irrigation, estimate irrigation Agriculture and Agrarian water use Reform, WaterWatch, ILRI Evaluating water use, Grontmij, ILRI, WaterWatch the economic return and environmental sustainability

These types of projects will help in surveying drainage needs of areas exposed to waterlogging, salinity and high groundwater tables. This information can also be helpful in monitoring the performance of the drainage systems, and whether sub-surface systems need to be replaced or better maintained. Comparison of drainage flows from irrigation schemes in relation to actual measurements of drainage rates provides valuable insights in the accumulation of non-depleted irrigation water. 22

Remote sensing can also help in the irrigation sector to aid the water allocation through crop water requirements and the spatial variability of the water demand. Differences between demand and consumptive use is crucial for re-allocation of water resources. Groundwater use for irrigation can be detected if crop consumptive use exceeds rainfall and canal water supply. Irrigation managers want a high performance of their systems, i.e. from diversion to the root zone. The entire pathway of water can be tracked when ground and remote sensing measurements are combined.

3.6 Alternative solutions

Alternative solutions to remote sensing mainly consists of laborious field surveys. Mapping of dynamic state variables such as solute concentration and soil moisture which also vary with depth is not straightforward. Basically repetitive measurements are required, which at the scale of an irrigation scheme or a canal command area are impossible to fulfill. Field surveys are always associated with a sampling problem: only a part of the area can be measured. Soil data needs often to be analyzed in the laboratory. Other parameters such as actual evapotranspiration and crop growth can only be measured at experimental sites equipped with special instruments such as lysimeters or flux towers. In that case, there is practical no alternative to the use of remote sensing data.

4 4.1

Capacity building Exchange of know-how

Different type of exchanges are conceivable; the scientists prefer to communicate among themselves, that is at least what they have been doing in the last 20 years. Several journals such as Remote Sensing of Environment and International Journal of Remote Sensing are good vehicles for professional scientists. There are also several international working groups such as ISPRS, EARSEL and IGARSS were research achievements are discussed. The agenda of the Expert Consultation included a specific item to discuss whether a new type of publication medium is required: Recommend on the establishment of an international Journal on the use of RS and GIS for water management for various user groups: river basin management, irrigation and drainage.

It was concluded before that a dialogue between water managers and consultants should be endeavored. The consultation firstly discussed the target audience of the know-how that is to be exchanged. It was recommended to focus on the (water) managers of regions of which large parts are irrigated and/or artificially drained. International water management journals have that task, but most journals dont have remote sensing in their curriculum. It was recognized that this audience reads a journal like Irrigation and Drainage Systems but not a specialized journal on remote sensing. It therefore was recommended to ask Kluwer to expand the possibilities of Irrigation and Drainage Systems as follows: Include color figures (inc. photos and images) in the electronic version of the Journal. Organize a link between the Journal paper and the database of the author(s) so that RS images can be accessed by the reader.

23

Facilitate the access to databases on RS for water management. Databases should be reviewed by editorial board members before inclusion to avoid flooding of readers by useless material.

According to the latest surveys, 29.3 million web-servers were linked to the worldwide web (www) by June 2001. On-line services in the field of remote sensing for irrigation and drainage are not present. There is a need to facilitate information finding and to provide a platform for sharing professional knowledge. Kluwer Academic Publishers (Dordrecht, The Netherlands) is willing to start such a journal (via Internet) on the recommendation of the expert consultation. Follow-up discussions with Kluwer are ongoing. An alternative way to communicate with water managers is the insertion of brief project achievements in glossy newsletters such as the GRID magazine of the IPTRID network and outlets of several other international institutes.

4.2

Institutional development

The critical constraint to drainage development in the developing countries is the buildingup of the policy and institutional frameworks and the mobilization of public support (Smedema et al., 2000). To a large extent, an analogy can be made to remote sensing technologies. Over the last few years, computer technologies have become cheaper, and many water resources centers are equipped with strong GIS laboratories. Often, the information systems set up are not used to their full potential, or became quickly obsolete due to fast developments on the software market. Training should be given and maintained to ensure proper utilization of the technical infrastructure. But the training should be tied to the niche of irrigation and drainage. Very often, remote sensing and GIS course are too broad and cover themes like natural resources management. Training and capacity building develops the institutes skills and capabilities. Training in the field of remote sensing should be facilitated in the country where project are executed and technical GIS and Remote Sensing analysts should be involved. These persons should be active in maintaining the database and update the tool. In terms of the personalities presented in Figure 5, they should belong to the category of engineers and consultants. The course objective should be the explanation and transfer of remote sensing algorithms to engineers and consultants active in the field of remote sensing and GIS. A minimum background in remote sensing physics is necessary. By absence of the latter basic knowledge, participants should first attend introduction courses in remote sensing. The duration of a local course should be 10 working days (two weeks). The clients are senior water managers and policy makers responsible for the planning and operation of water resources. Their full agenda and there limited interest in the technology, requires a short course of a few days only. Such course should be convincing and show them in due time the cost/benefit in respect to confidence limits.

The Expert Consultation recommends launching locally organized short courses for senior water managers and analysts. Decision makers need to see the cost/benefit of the technique and how it can help them reforming irrigation institutions. Technical assistants and local consultants should be involved in more technical courses that may last about three weeks or longer to get a full understanding of advanced information systems.

24

To the knowledge of the participants, there are currently no standard courses given on the very specific issue of remote sensing applications in the field of irrigation and drainage. The International Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences (www.itc.nl) together with the International Institute for Land Reclamation and Improvement (www.ilri.nl) have planned to start such an event during April 2002. A first track of the course will orient on water managers. A follow-up course for the remote sensing and GIS specialists, as well as for technicians, is planned in the summer of 2002. The participants recommend such dedicated course to be given in the context of a demonstration project and at the premises of the end user in order to boost the influx from local participants. Remote sensing costs money. The investment is only worth if irrigation water can be saved, crops dont longer suffer from high groundwater tables, the economic benefits increase etc. The costs are related to training of staff, recruitment of specialists, hiring of consultants, purchases of dedicated software and image acquisitions. But when implemented, remote sensing techniques can partial replace field surveyors. The emphasis is on partial, because field visits remain necessary, but with a smaller group of surveyors. Sampling can be prepared and organized more efficient if the spatial variability in a certain region is known. Hence, the use of satellite remote sensing requires the recruitment of experts (or hiring consultants) for digital analysis. This, however, will result in a reduction of field surveyors. The change in labor cost is therefore expected to be small.

4.3

Software

Image processing requires staff time in order to get acquainted with specialized software. There is a wide variation among available packages, ranging from low-cost and simple (MapInfo, IDRISI, ER-Mapper, PCI) to complete and simple (ILWIS, GRASS) and professional and expensive (Erdas-Imagine, IDL-Envi, ArcView-spatial analyst). To prevent starters of becoming overwhelmed, it is recommended first to learn to use the freely downloadable software tools. These software packages suffice for certain applications only. Especially when it comes to data merging and conversions between point, raster and vector data, it is necessary to shift to more professional packages. Another important aspect in this context is the availability of tutorials and practical user guides. The water management oriented user of the remote sensing software wants to learn quickly how to operate his/her applications. A good step-by-step guide will significantly help this process.

Conclusions and recommendations

Considering that the accuracy with which water management related parameters can be measured is acceptable, and the cost is affordable, the expert consultation concluded that the core activity in remote sensing sciences should focus on making products, rather than developing new algorithms. There is, however, more scientific research required on soils related parameters, in particular on the determination of soil moisture and soil salinity. Efforts should be made to make algorithms more robust and design user-friendly tools that can help water managers in their decision making of water allocation and increase the productivity of water. The algorithms should have a sound physical basis and not be based on empirical solution for specific crop and soil environments. At this moment, applications should be endorsed on areas where the accuracy of field data is low or not available at the desired spatial and temporal scales.

25

The final product describes the deviation of the drainage parameter to a reference or target (benchmark) value. Software dedicated to satellite remote sensing in irrigation and drainage studies need to be made, and course should be offered to learn the advances in information science. Statistics should be built in the software to show the deviations from the target levels. The uncertainty of the data should be indicated as part of data quality control. The headline recommendations of the Expert Consultation are: Focus efforts on converting remote sensing as a tool to a product. This implies a strong involvement and commitment of the private sector on the marketing of the technology. Disseminate the results of remote sensing techniques in water resources management studies through easily accessible newsletter and by electronic newsletters with references to Internet databases. A new electronic news center dedicated to remote sensing applications on irrigation and drainage has to be created, as existing ones have not sufficient focus Enhance local capacity building by means of tailor made training courses for senior decision makers (short duration) to expose them to potential applications and junior technicians (intermediate duration) to learn them how to process images Initiate demonstration and implementation projects (two-phases) for exposing drainage engineers with remote sensing data. A large portion of subsidy is required for the first phase, followed by the second phase where the end-user is substantially sharing the costs. Every project should have a strong capacity building component. Remote sensing products should be associated with uncertainty bounds as part of the data quality control Future remote sensing research for irrigation and drainage should emphasize on soil moisture and soil salinity, in particular in the average root zone values.

Further to that, the following issues were agreed: There is a need for a remote sensing glossary for irrigation and drainage engineers. Open the option for electronic publications to make the dissemination of colorful results easier. Writing of popular research output in existing newsletters, e.g. a special issue of GRID or the electronic newsletters of USDA-ARS, CSIRO etc. Open a remote sensing window in GRID. Organize a thematic workshop during ICID Montreal. Focus remote sensing work within only one single ICID working group. Report salient finding of the Expert Consultancy Meeting to international ICID events (e.g. 52nd International Executive Council Meeting and 1st Asian Regional Conference of ICID Seoul and 4th Interregional Conference on Environment and Water, Fortaleza. This has been achieved.

References

Abdel-Dayem, S. 2000. Drainage experiences in the arid and semi-arid regions, Proceedings of the 8th ICID International Drainage Workshop, Jan/Feb., 2000, New Delhi, Vol. 1, INCID, New Delhi Bakker, M. and W.G.M. Bastiaanssen, 1999. Earth observation for environmental impact assessment in irrigation and drainage projects, a demonstration project for the Tungabhadra Irrigation Pilot Project II, India, DHV Consultants, BCRS report 99-13, Delft, The Netherlands: 42 pp.

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Bastiaanssen, W.G.M., 1998. Remote sensing in water resources management; the state of the art, Monograph, International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Colombo, Sri Lanka: 118 pp. Bastiaanssen, W.G.M. and M.G. Bos, 1999. Irrigation performance indicators based on remotely sensed data: a review of literature, Irrigation and Drainage Systems, 13(4): 291-311 Bastiaanssen, W.G.M., R.A.L. Brito, M.G. Bos, R.A. Souza, E.B. Cavalcanti and M.M. Bakker, 2001. Low cost satellite data for monthly irrigation performance monitoring: benchmarks from Nilo Coelho, Irrigation and Drainage Systems 15: 53-79 Bos, M.G., 1997. Performance indicators for irrigation and drainage, Irrigation and Drainage Systems 11: 119-137 Bos, M.G., 2001. Why would we use a GIS database and remote sensing in irrigation management ?, in (eds.) A, van Dijk and M.G. Bos, GIS and Remote Sensing techniques in land- and water management, Kluwer Academic Publishers, ISBN 0-7923-6788-X: 1-8 Brena, J, L. Sanvicente and L. Pulido., 1995. Salinity assessment in Mexico, in (ed.) Vidal, FAO Water Report 4: 190-196 FAO, 1996. Fact Sheets, World Food Summit (November 1996), Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome, Italy Hofwegen, van, P. and M. Svendsen, 2000. A vision of water for food and rural development, World Water Forum, 17 March 2000, The Hague, The Netherlands Jackson, R.D., R.J. Reginato and S.B. Idso, 1977. Wheat canopy temperatures: a practical tool for evaluating water requirements, Water Resources Research 13: 651-656 Kondo, A., A. Higuchi, S. Kishi, T. Fukuzone and J. Li, 1998. The use of multi-temporal NOAA/AVHRR data to monitor surface moisture status in the Huaihe River Basin, China, Adv. Space Research, ol. 22, no. 5: 645-654 Li Jiren, C. Zhedan, X. Fuchuan, L. Jian, W. Wen and C. Lei, 1997. Application of remore sensing and GIS techniques for irrigable land investigation, IAHS Red Book Publ. no.242: 1-5 Moran, M.S., D.C.Hymer, J.Qi and Y.Kerr, 2002. Comparison of ERS-2 SAR and Landsat TM imagery for monitoring agricultural crops and soil conditions, Remote Sensing of Environment, 79: 243-252. Pulido, L. B. Robles, C.L. Wiegand, J. Gonzalez and H. Sanvicente, 1998. Advances in the use of remote sensors to detect soil salinity in Mexican irrigation districts, World Congress of Soil Science, Montpellier, France. Sano, E.E., M.S. Moran, A.R. Huette and T. Miura, 1998. C and multi-angle Ku-band synthetic aperture radar data for bare soil moisture estimation in agricultural areas, Remote Sensing Env. 64: 77-90 Smedema, L.K., S. Abdel Dayemand W.J. Ochs, 2000. Drainage and agricultural development, Irrigation and Drainage Systems 14: 223-235 Tabet, D., D Zimmer, P. Strosser and A. Vidal, 1998. Irrigation management and soil salinity diagnosis a case study in Pakistan, 16th World Congress of Soil Science, 20-26 August 1998, Montpelllier, France: 8 pp. Vidal, A., 1994. Use of remote sensing techniques in irrigation and drainage, FAO Water Reports 4, Rome, Italy: 201 pp. Vidal, A., 2000 (editor). Remote sensing and geographic information systems in irrigation and drainage, methodological guide and applications, ICID Working group on remote sensing and GIS, ISBN 81-85068-72-0, New Delhi: 126 pp. Vincent, B., A. Vidal, D. Tabbet, A. Baqri and M. Kuper, 1996. Use of satellite remote sensing for the assessment of waterlogging and salinization as an indication of the performance of drained th systems, 16 Congress ICID, Egypt, 15-22 September 1996, New Delhi, India Wiegand, C.L., J.D. Rhoades, D.E. Escobar and J.H. Everitt, 1994. Photographic and videographic observations for determining and mapping the response of cotton to soil salinity, Rem. Sens. Of Env. 48: 1-25 Yu, T., and G. Tian, 1997. The research on the method of monitoring soil moisture in North China Plain based on NOAA-AVHRR data, physical measurement and signature in remote sensing, in (eds.) Guyot and Phulpin, A.A. Balkema Rotterdam, vol.2: 613-619

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Appendix 1: List of participants

Expert 1 2 Dr. Safwat Abdel Dayem Dr. Alain Vidal Affiliation World Bank, Washington DC
sabdeldayem@worldbank.org

Nationality Egypt France

IPTRID, FAO/AGLW Viale delle Terme di Caracalla 00100 Rome Italy

Alain.vidal@fao.org

Dr. Daniel Zimmer

CEMAGREF Direction Generale Parc de Tourvoie BP 44, 92163 Antony cedex

Daniel.zimmer@cemagref.fr

France

Dr. Dunia Tabet

Dar Al-Handasah-Shair and Partners, Resources and Environment Department, Dar-Al-Handasah Bldf., Verdun Street, P.O. Box 7159, Beirut Lebanon
dunia.tabet@darbeirut.com

Lebanon

Prof. Jiaguo Qi

Michigan State University Dept. Basic Science and Remote Sensing Initiative, USA
Qi@msu.edu

China

Dr. Hany Abdel Kader El Sadany

Planning Sector, Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation Cornish El-Nil, Imbaba, P.O. Box 12666, Giza, Egypt
Kandil@mwri.gov.eg

Egypt

Dr. Thiruvengadachari

Agrinet Solutions Ltd., Plot no. 694, Road 33, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad 500 033, India
Charist@hd2.dot.net.in

India

Mr. Palitha Bandara

Irrigation Department, P.O. Box 1138 Colombo, Sri Lanka

p.bandara@cgiar.org

Sri Lanka

(also associated with IWMI) 9 10 Mr. R. Sinan Erer Prof. Li Jiren

Kentkur@superonlin.com

China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research Remote Sensing Center of MWR 20 West, Chegongzhuang Road Beijing, China
ygzx@iwhr.com

Turkey China

11 12

Dr. Ricardo Brito Mr. Leonardo Pulido

EMBRAPA, CP 151, Sete Lagoas, MG, Brazil

rbrito@cnpms.embrapa.br

Brazil Mexico

IMTA, Paso Cuaahnahuac 8532, Progreso Jiutepec Morelos, 62550 Mexico

lpulido@tlaloc.imta.mx

28

13 14 15 16

Expert Mr. Javier Zuleta Mr. Tony Morse Dr. M.(Rien) G. Bos Prof. Wim Bastiaanssen

Affiliation General Department of Irrigation, Mendoza, Argentina

jzuleta@irrigacion.mendoza.gov.ar

Nationality Argentina USA Netherlands Netherlands

Idaho Department of Water Resources, 1301 North Orchard St.,Boise, ID 83706

tmorse@idwr.state.id.us

ILRI, P.O. Box 45, Wageningen

m.g.bos@ilri.agro.nl

WaterWatch, Generaal Foulkesweg 28, 6703 BS, Wageningen

w.bastiaanssen@waterwatch.nl

17

Mr. Mobin-ud-deenAhmed

(also associated with ITC and IWMI) International Water Management Institute, 12km Multan Rd., Chowk Thokar Niaz Baig, Lahore 53700, Pakistan
a.mobin@cgiar.org

Pakistan

18 19 20

Dr. Albert van Dijk Dr. Arjen de Vries Mr. Bernard Vincent

(also associated with ITC) DHV Consultants, Laan 1945, Amersfoort

geo@cons.dhv.nl

Netherlands Netherlands France

IWACO, P.O. Box 8520, 3009 AM, Rotterdam

a.devries@rtd.iwaco.nl

CEMAGREF, Aix en Provence, France

Bernard.Vincent@antony.cemagref.fr

29

Appendix 2: Programme of the Consultation

Tuesday, 15 May 2001 09.00 09.15 Opening of the Expert Consultation Introduction on Performance Assessment of water use for irrigation, drainage, environment, etc. Presentation and discussion of state-of-the-art papers by participants. As mentioned in the ToR of the expert consultation, presentations should include information on the accuracy with which measurables can be determined and its cost. The participants are requested to bring relevant articles and reports, which help in getting an appropriate list of references and exchange know-how. The presentation and discussions are expected to define the outlines of practical approach and guidelines for applying the technology on a pilot scale in some priority areas to be decided upon in consultation with the World Bank operations and the governments concerned. Lunch Presentation and discussion of state-of-the-art papers (continued) Summary of the state-of-the-art on the use of RS to quantify key-aspects of water use and related environmental effects. Drinks, etc. Dinner at the Reehorst

10.00

12.30 13.30 16.00

17.30 19.15

Wednesday, 16 May 2001 09.00 Presentations and discussion on user demands and institutional aspects related to the introduction of RS as a water management tool. Recommendations on training, maintenance & service of software, exchange of know-how, etc. Exchange of know-how and experience. Consider the establishment of a new ICID working group, one dealing with remote sensing techniques for water management. Such a Working Group would support the sustainability and continuity of the effort through an independent and non-profit NGO professional organization. Recommend on the establishment of an international Journal on the use of RS and GIS for water management for various user groups: river basin management, irrigation and drainage. Kluwer is willing to start such a journal (via internet) on the recommendation of the expert consultation. Review paper on the state-of-the-art and/or an annotated bibliography? Lunch

11.30

12.30

30

13.30

Discussion of proposal(s) for funding of technology applications to selected donors like the World Bank, ADB, Arab Fund etc. These pilot projects should focus on leading water institutions that are willing to test the RS-GIS tool for future monitoring and evaluation of water use and for strategic water management. Summary of the state-of-the-art on the use of RS to quantify key-aspects of water use and related environmental effects. Summary and recommendations. Drinks, etc. Dinner at the Reehorst

16.00

17.30 18.00 19.15

31

Appendix 3: Format for projects

A format for formulating project ideas on integrated water resources management was discussed. For several projects the ideas of table 7 the format has been included in this Appendix. Title Country Purpose Monitoring crop irrigation and drainage demand Soil salinity as a function of changes in soil properties, water management and population density Integrated irrigation and drainage performance Sustainability of irrigated area, detection of salt crust. Combining various hydrological and soil related parameters in digital databases Water balance studies leading to a salt balance. Environmental impact Monitoring land reclamation and drainage Partners General Department of Irrigation, ILRI Cemagref, IWHR Beijing, HHRB Yinchuan, ILRI, IHE Delft

Improving water Argentina management by use of RS and GIS, Mendoza Province Evaluation of soil salinity China in the Ninxian Province related to changes in land use Irrigation and drainage monitoring in deltas Egypt*

Monitoring if high levels of France soil salinity in irrigated areas of arid and semi-arid climatic zones Knowledge GIS for water India* management

Ministery of Water Resources, ILRI WaterWatch Cemagref, WaterWatch, CNES, Spotimage

CSSRI, CEMAGREF

Performance assessment Iran of irrigated agriculture and the effect of drainage effluent on the environment Agricultural development Malaysia in lowland peat swamps

Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Agriculture, ILRI, Waterwatch

Groundwater irrigation developments

Syria*

Establishing an Turkey information base for water management in the GAP Region *) not in this appendix

Department of Irrigation and Drainage PS Konsultant LAWOO Retrospectively Ministries of Irrigation, estimate irrigation Agriculture and Agrarian water use Reform, WaterWatch, ILRI Evaluating water use, Grontmij, ILRI, WaterWatch the economic return and environmental sustainability

32

A3.1 Argentina
Country: Argentina Date: October 2001 Project Symbol: Estimated duration: 3 years Tentative donor contribution: 500.000 U$S Proposed title: Improving Water Management Using RS and GIS Mendoza, Argentina Donor: To be identified Estimated government contribution: 500.000 U$S

A Development problem(s) intended to be addressed by proposed project: Water use and management performance with respect to target levels concerning sustainability of irrigated agriculture and the provincial water administration system. Lack of institutional capacity for water management. Limited development of Basin Master Plan design and implementation process due to information availability limitations. Need to support planning, preparation and implementation processes of rehabilitation and modernization projects. Unavailability of a ready to use tools for water management based on Geographical Information Systems and Remote Sensing, at operational level. Lack of confidence among water operators about the potentiality of new technologies applied to the improvement of water management routines. Remarkable deficit of knowledge and training on GIS and RS tools development and implementation Bad information dissemination about water availability and crop requirements at minor canals level reduced users participation on water administration, creating disagreements between WUA's and water agency on sector diagnosis and main issues and priorities to be solve. B Concerned parties/target beneficiaries Irrigation Department of Mendoza Province, Argentina. Water User Associations of Mendoza River Basin and other basins of the region Water Administration Agencies of the region People and Government of Mendoza Different economic sectors highly dependable on water supply and administration (irrigated agriculture, food industry, urban and domestic water distribution companies, etc.)

C Pre-project and end of project status Basic initiative on GIS and RS implementation on Mendoza River Basin sponsored by FAO projects DGI cadastral improvement project aimed to obtain updated parcel information about water rights allocation and land use. Provincial Water Plan proposal launched in 1999 on discussion at a legislative level Strategic Provincial Development Plan preparation initiative proposed by Private Investors Council (Consejo Empresario Mendocino-CEM) where water planning problems are one of the major issues. Analysis and discussion limited by poor, not detailed and clear information about water availability, water requirement and current performance use. FAO/UNDP DGI contract for Water Plan studies and investment projects preparation as an opportunity to cope basic information, institutional skills, and analysis tools deficits. 33

Too few technicians trained on RS and GIS use on water planning and project preparation and operation. Considerable conflicts between competitive water consumers in an increasing water scarcity due to a gradual reduction of main rivers flows and precipitation in last decades and important water demand growth. Low values of many performance indicators due to poor knowledge about the quantity and opportunity of water allocation at agency, WUA and farm levels. Large water distribution canals network unlined with high seepage losses increasing waterlogging and land degradation processes. Limited users participation on water administration due to lack of agreement about main issues and priorities to be solve. Such a disagreement on diagnosis is based on the poor knowledge and inaccurate information related basic figures explaining how the system works and where are the main problems to solve.

D Relationship to other programmes in the same sub-sector Programa de Servicios Agrcolas Provinciales PROSAP (Provincial Agricultural Sector Investment Programme) Financed by the IDB and World Bank these have programmes supported investments on irrigation and drainage sector in Mendoza Province since 1997. DGI uses a loan (approval of 40 million dollars) for investments up to 2003. Main components of the project are; infrastructure rehabilitation, technologies transfer, water administration amelioration, master plans design using RS and GIS. Project and master plans preparation have contracted by DGI to FAO Investment Centre via UTF contract. 2001-2002. Mendoza River Regulation Project The start of service (December 2001) of the storage dam at Potrerillos (450hm3) poses the challenge to proceed to a redesign of the traditional water distribution system of Mendoza River (75.000 has irrigated). From now on, the system has to be improved in order to guarantee that the benefits of flow regulation arrives to each of the more than 20000 users located along the 3200 km canal network and to mitigate the eventual negative impacts of the sediment retention and the increase of seepage at the unlined canals and soils degradation due waterlogging and salinisation. This task requires a huge planning process where the use of GIS and RS to define and evaluate strategies and policies is one of the main tools. Information System for Water Planning - SIPH - in the Mendoza River Basin The Irrigation Department have developed in cooperation with FAO/Japan project an Information System for Water Planning - SIPH, useful to evaluate the current performance of the system and to estimate the most probable impacts of various improvement strategies over more than 10000 farms. Developing this tool have been implemented a Geographic Information System where have been geo-referenced 44000 water use concessions over the 35000 cadastral parcels establishing relations with bioclimatic, soil and land use information. The preliminary results have facilitated the processes of identification and prioritization of investment projects that have to be done as complementary actions of the regulation project. Recently the system has been improved with detailed RS Landsat 7 and IKONOS 4+1 land use information combined with water use scenarios design and modeling techniques. E Development objective and its relation to the country's policies and priorities for the sector/sub-sector Increase institutional capacity for water management Support project planning and implementation of rehabilitation and modernisation projects. 34

Produced a ready to use tools for water management based on GIS&RS in a representative pilot case for practical and training purposes Major elements and Activities Party responsible for the activity Images acquisition and processing ITC Obtained information analysis INA Inclusion of the information in the ILRI GIS Local Modeling and assessing scenarios Universities considering changes on; Institutional aspects Climatic (global change) Infrastructure modernisation Legal reorganisation (water rights change) Increasing institutional capacity Activities

Outputs

Kick Off meeting Developing a GIS Land and water use information collection Land and water management info collection Land and water quality info collection Implementation of the interface RS application to water management Methodological analysis

Training needs Courses (national or regional) Young Professionals on GIS/RS 2 courses (2 weeks) x 15 people = 30 people DSS using GIS/RS for Managers; 2 courses (1 weeks) x 10 people = 20 people Users Association operators seminars; 4 seminars (2 days) x 10 people = 40 people On the Job training Five young professionals scholarships for development and training from Europe and the region x 6 month Special (research) studies Subcontracted to Academic Sector

J Budget In continuation to earlier technical assistance, the following organizations will be approached; World Bank (Monitoring Program Funds, Preparation Programs Funds, Country Grants), GWP, FAO (TCP Program),DGI and User Associations, Argentina Federal Government, Mendoza Province Government and Dutch Government or institutions Required Financial support is estimated at 500.000 U$S

35

A3.2 China
Country: China Date: 09/01 Project Symbol: Proposed title: Evolution of the soil salinity in the Ninxia province (China) related to changes in soil property regimes, water management strategies and population density Donor: World bank, FAO, Unesco Estimated government contribution to be determined.

Estimated duration: 2 years Tentative donor contribution: 65 000

A Development problem(s) intended to be addressed by proposed project. The Ninxia (China, Ninxia province) is severely affected by irrigation induced soil salinisation. On going projects are showing that salinisation can be detected by satellite remote sensing, as salt crust are highly visible and low intense cropping area can be related to low NDVI values. The project aims at monitoring the evolution of salinity within the times and to relate this evolution to the major rural events like for instance in the 80's land privatisation and allocation, or nowadays increase of population. It is assumed that the first process has led to abandon lands, and the second is leading to recover abandoned lands. This evolution has of course to be confronted to the changes in management of irrigation and drainage schemes. At a particular time, it should be able to clarify the relevant process and assess the impact of water management strategies. B Concerned parties/target beneficiaries Local government, irrigation district, farmer association. C Pre-project and end of project status Data processed for the year 1999, sociological aspects excepted D Relationship to other programmes in the same subsection Work has started in the frame of the INCO-DC Yellow River water saving project. E Development objective and its relation to the country's policies and priorities for the sector/subsection Water saving in the upper reaches of the Yellow River is a national Chinese concern. Operational outputs would result from the project F Major elements Probably one of the rarest projects where historical and sociological of soil salinity changes would be reached. The approach would interest grand donors and international Associations.

36

Outputs

Activities

To collect and process images versus historical aspects of salinity To record agricultural practices within times, changes in land occupation and allocation Hydraulic modeling, performance assessment of structures

Archive Image processing and GIS; salinity mapping Farmer inquiries Water level and discharge measurements interpretation

Party responsible for the activity Cemagref, ILRI, IWHR Beijing (RS lab) HWRB, Yinchuan IHE Delft, ILRI

G Host country commitment Chinese partners would be met in November 2001 in China. H Budget The tentative budget is as follows: Images 20 000 Labour 30 000 Travel 10 000 Overhead 5 000 Total 65 000

37

A3.4 France
Country: France Date: September 2001 Project Symbol: Proposed title: Monitoring of high levels of soil salinity in irrigated areas of the arid and semi-arid climatic zones, by use of satellite remote sensing Feasibility study Donor: World bank, FAO, Unesco Estimated government contribution:

Estimated duration: 2 years Tentative donor contribution: 50 000

A Development problem(s) intended to be addressed by proposed project. the salinisation process is well known and described, the geographic extension of the problem needs at least further investigation: all the information about geographic extension relies upon the assessment of experts and, indeed statistics might be considered as low reliable. In this context, governments and grand international donors would give due attention to an indicator that assesses the extension of soil salinity hazards and their variation within times. The project aims Soil Salinity is a major concern of irrigated areas in the arid and semiarid climatic zone. If at providing such an indicator, by use of global remote sensing approach. It is known that high levels of salinity can be detected, when salt crust occurs. Thus, to monitor the extension of the salt crust is likely to assess the salinity status of the area, and his evolution within times would reflect the changes in this status. If we can have maps with the location of irrigated areas it would be easy to purchase ad hoc images and to process salt crust detection. The main difficulty would be the information about irrigated areas, as it is not available at a global scale. It would be a long time to get it through the various nations under concern. Thus, this delimitation might be derived from a global NOAA NDVI mosaic, a DEM to select the sub-horizontal zones, and climatic data to select arid and semi-arid regions, where it is sure with a reasonable approximation that medium and high NDVI values correspond to irrigated area. After what the salt crust detection and the elaboration of statistics is possible. B Concerned parties/target beneficiaries World Bank, FAO, UNESCO, C Pre-project and end of project status Detection of salt crust by remote sensing has been tested positively in various regions. D Development objective and its relation to the country's policies and priorities for the sector/sub-sector The project addresses to international donors that may use the results as an investment and programming tool.

38

Major elements Activities Image processing and GIS Party responsible for the activity Cemagref WaterWatch + CNES, Spotimage etc

Outputs To assess the feasibility of delimitation of irrigated areas with NDVI NOAA mosaics To detect salt crust To elaborate statistics

F Host country commitment To be completed upon selection of countries. G Risk The main difficulty would be the information about irrigated areas, as it is not available at a global scale. It would be a long time to get it through the various nations under concern. H Budget Excluding labour cost, the budget is: Images 20 000 Labour 35 000 Overheads 5 000 Total 60 000

39

A3.6 Iran
Country: Iran Date: March 2002 Project Symbol: Estimated duration: 3 years Tentative donor contribution: Proposed title: Performance assessment of irrigated agriculture and the effect of drainage effluent of the environment. Funder: Ministry of Agriculture (LNV) The Netherlands Ministry of Energy (MoE), Iran. Estimated LNV contribution: 150 000 Plus 100 000 from the Ministry of Energy.

A Development problem(s) intended to be addressed by proposed project. Irrigation can be considered as a human intervention in the environment; water is imported into an area to grow a crop that would not grow without this imported water. In reverse, drainage discharges water from an area to improve crop growth, accessibility of fields, discharge salts from the area, etc. Besides the above, intended impacts of water management (usually labeled positive) there are unintended impacts (usually labeled negative). The positive impacts are mostly restricted to the irrigated (or drained) area, while the negative impacts may spread over the irrigated area, the river basin downstream of the water diversion, and the drainage basin downstream of the drained area. Within the irrigated area, several negative impacts (waterlogging, salinity, and water shortage due to competition for water) cause a reduction of the (actually) irrigated area. A further reduction of the irrigated area is related with population growth and the related urbanization, road construction, etc. Aspects of physical sustainability (of the irrigated area) that can be affected by irrigation managers relate primarily to over- or under-supply of irrigation water leading to waterlogging or salinity. The number of parameters that have to be monitored at the various reference sites may differ, but the method of monitoring should be the same for all locations. This makes it easier and faster to compare and analyse the collected data and adjust the monitoring programme if necessary. We consider the following topics for irrigated areas important and recommend a monitoring program for: Land use Productivity of agricultural land Water management Environment The environmental aspects of agricultural development will be included in the management tool. Land use and the condition of the peat land is closely related. Under natural circumstances the sustainability of peat will be guaranteed. Any intervention in these areas will lead to degradation and loss of peat. Water management for agriculture will lead to a loss of peat through subsidence. Crop yield and environment are mainly related to human activity. Development for agriculture will lead to the use of fertilisers and pesticides and deteriorate water quality. B Concerned parties/target beneficiaries Government of Iran. The Wageningen UR team intends to extend on the first draft of the "guidelines performance assessment of irrigation and drainage.

40

C Pre-project and end of project status Monitoring and evaluation of agricultural development in irrigated areas and the effect of drainage effluent on the downstream environment. A methodology will be tested and made available to support water management decisions. D Relationship to other programmes in the same sub sector New techniques for RS monitoring have been developed and several of these data could also be derived from low-cost satellite information. For remote sensing to be used, a correlation needs to be established between: Depth to the groundwater table versus the temperature of the soil surface. Depth to the groundwater table versus crop yield Depth to the groundwater table versus actual evapotranspiration (of groundwater) of the crop. Bio-mass production versus marketable crop yield of selected commercial crops. Parameters like soil temperature, actual ET, bio-mass production can be measured with increasing accuracy through the energy balance as based on satellite sensed data. The use of NOAA images (1100m pixel size) seems to be sufficiently accurate for the monitoring of the above measurables. With a known correlation between the above parameters and crop characteristics, a low-cost monitoring system for the entire coastal plain of Sarawak would be feasible E Development objective and its relation to the country's policies and priorities for the sector or sub sector The project addresses policy developments in Iran. Developments in other countries in semi-arid regions can also use the tool. F Major elements Activities Party responsible for the activity Consultants Steering Committee (of pertinent stakeholders)

Outputs

Establishment of a land & water monitoring program that employs both remote sensing and field analysis techniques

Identifying sampling locations for field data (representing all minor catchments) Identifying parameters for land & water use monitoring within the scope of effects of agricultural and urban-born nutrient and pollution loads. Determine period and frequency of sampling as a start-up of a monitoring program Assessing the type and quality of data produced by different institutions Identifying a suitable database system or data map that shows the type of data produced by any institution. Producing different land & water use maps for each monitoring parameter, making use of remote sensing and GIS applications at each sampling occasion.

Establishment of a common data organization system and computer based land & water use maps for assessing temporal and spatial changes.

Consultants Steering Committee (of pertinent stakeholders)

41

Outputs

Activities

Party responsible for the activity Consultants Steering Committee (of pertinent stakeholders)

Constructing an integrated hydrological modeling

Selecting appropriate software for the modeling of selected parameters and performance indicators on land and water use. This includes the monitoring of the effects of changes in land use. Constructing and running of the management tool with available data. Determining the basic needs for a sustainable water management plan.

Framework for a land & water management plan

Consultants Steering Committee (of pertinent stakeholders)

G Project strategy: The project strategy is to establish the information base to be developed through a continuous monitoring system with a view toward implementation of sustainable water management a representative catchment area. Main focus area of the project is the use of remote sensing and GIS technology in the monitoring of a wide area of land use. This will enable timely taken measures with regards to development activities on environmental aspects. F Host country commitment The Ministry of Energy is co-funding the project and is fully committed to its success and the future application of results. Water is an extremely scarce resource in Iran. G Risk The major risk foreseen is the duration it will take to establish relationships between the two Ministries of Agriculture and Energy. Difficulties that may rise in access to past information and data on land use and water quality in the region is another factor of risk that can hinder the project flow. H Budget Tentatively, the budget is as follows: LNV 150000
MoE 100000

42

A3.7 Malaysia
Country: Malaysia, Sarawak Date: January 2002 Project Symbol: Estimated duration: 3 years Tentative donor contribution: Proposed title: Monitoring of agricultural development in the central coastal plain of Sarawak, Malaysia. Funder: Government of Sarawak Estimated government contribution: 500 000 Plus 100 000 from Wageningen UR

A Development problem(s) intended to be addressed by proposed project. Sarawak has around 1.7 million ha of peat land. More than 1.0 million ha is due to be developed for agriculture during the next decades. Most development will be through private companies receiving a 60-year land lease for 5000 ha lots. The Government of Sarawak needs a tool to manage (including monitoring and evaluation) land development in this coastal area. The number of parameters that have to be monitored at the various reference sites may differ, but the method of monitoring should be the same for all locations. This makes it easier and faster to compare and analyse the collected data and adjust the monitoring programme if necessary. We consider the following topics for the Sarawak peat lands important and recommend a monitoring program for: Land use Condition of the peat lands Water management Environment The environmental aspects of coastal development will be included in the management tool. Land use and the condition of the peat land is closely related. Under natural circumstances the sustainability of peat will be guaranteed. Any intervention in these areas will lead to degradation and loss of peat. Water management for agriculture will lead to a loss of peat through subsidence. Crop yield and environment are mainly related to human activity. Development for agriculture will lead to loss of peat, while the use of fertilisers and pesticides and may deteriorate water quality. Water management for water supply relies on (conserved) peat lands because the natural outflow from the peat area is used as water source. B Concerned parties/target beneficiaries Government of Sarawak. The Wageningen UR team intends to extend on the first draft of the "guidelines for peat development in the coastal plains of Sarawak" and publish it as a more general guideline for South-east Asia. C Pre-project and end of project status Monitoring and evaluation of agricultural development in coastal plains with dense vegetation. D Relationship to other programmes in the same sub sector The project is a component of Phase 2 of the DID-LAWOO study on peat subsidence. New techniques for RS monitoring have been developed and several of these data could also be derived from low-cost satellite information. Applied research on the potential use of this technology is recommended. For remote sensing to be used, a correlation needs to be established between: Depth to the groundwater table versus the temperature of the soil surface. 43

Depth to the groundwater table versus crop yield Depth to the groundwater table versus actual evapotranspiration (of groundwater) of the crop. Bio-mass production versus marketable crop yield of selected commercial crops.

Parameters like soil temperature, actual ET, bio-mass production can be measured with increasing accuracy through the energy balance as based on satellite sensed data. The use of NOAA images (1100m pixel size) seems to be sufficiently accurate for the monitoring of the above measurables. With a known correlation between the above parameters and crop characteristics, a low-cost monitoring system for the entire coastal plain of Sarawak would be feasible E Development objective and its relation to the country's policies and priorities for the sector or sub sector The project addresses policy developments in Sarawak. Developments in other countries in south-east Asia can also use the tool. F Major elements Activities Party responsible for the activity Consultants Steering Committee (of pertinent stakeholders)

Outputs

Establishment of a land & water monitoring program that employs both remote sensing and field analysis techniques

Identifying sampling locations for field data (representing all minor catchments) Identifying parameters for land & water use monitoring within the scope of effects of agricultural and urban-born nutrient and pollution loads. Determine period and frequency of sampling as a start-up of a monitoring program Assessing the type and quality of data produced by different institutions Identifying a suitable database system or data map that shows the type of data produced by any institution. Producing different land & water use maps for each monitoring parameter, making use of remote sensing and GIS applications at each sampling occasion. Selecting appropriate software for the modeling of selected parameters and performance indicators on land and water use. This includes the monitoring of the effects of changes in land use. Constructing and running of the management tool with available data. Determining the basic needs for a sustainable water management plan.

Establishment of a common data organization system and computer based land & water use maps for assessing temporal and spatial changes.

Consultants Steering Committee (of pertinent stakeholders)

Constructing an integrated hydrological modeling

Consultants Steering Committee (of pertinent stakeholders)

Framework for a land & water management plan

Consultants Steering Committee (of pertinent stakeholders) 44

G Project strategy: The project strategy is to establish the information base to be developed through a continuous monitoring system with a view toward implementation of sustainable water management in the Central Coastal Area. Main focus area of the project is the wide use of remote sensing and GIS technology in the monitoring of a wide area of land use. This will enable timely taken measures with regards to development activities on environmental aspects. H Host country commitment The Government of Sarawak is funding the project and is fully committed to its success and the future application of results. I Risk The major risk foreseen is the duration it will take to establish relationships between agricultural parameters and remotely sensed data. Particularly data on land subsidence will take long time series before a reliable relationship becomes available. Difficulties that may rise in access to past information and data on land use and water quality in the region is another factor of risk that can hinder the project flow. J Budget GoS 500000 WUR 100000

45

A3.9 Turkey
Country: Turkey Date: Project Symbol: Estimated duration: 12 months Tentative donor contribution: Proposed title: Establishing an information base towards sustainable water management plan in GAP-Region, TURKEY Donor: To be identified Estimated government contribution:

A Development problem(s) intended to be addressed by proposed project Rural development in the South Eastern part of Turkey is accelerated through the start of the South Eastern Anatolia Project (GAP), which mainly focuses on three areas: hydropower development, irrigated agriculture and agro-industries. South Eastern Anatolia Region accomplished a huge agricultural potential with the GAP, depending mostly on irrigation projects and establishment of new agricultural techniques. The irrigation projects within this region will provide a substantial increase in the agricultural production. However, GAP region will possibly come across with the deterioration of water resources and agricultural soils basically due to mis-implementation of the irrigation techniques. The project can be justified on the need for a common water-monitoring data organization system. Therefore, it is aimed to collect all the water monitoring data in a common database that with the cooperation and collaboration of different organisations. A common database for the GAP region will be the first step in establishment of a coordinated database and monitoring program. B Concerned parties/target beneficiaries GAP Regional Development Administration State Hydraulic Works (DSI) Local Authorities/Public Ministry of Agriculture C Pre-project and end of project status For hundreds of years, rain-fed agriculture techniques were practiced in the GAP region. Transition to irrigated agriculture techniques will possibly result in some negative effects on the natural environment and water resources via altering hydrological regime, overuse of water, agricultural pollution and nutrient loads to the environment. For this reason, the effect of increased water-use for agriculture on the environment, both within and downstream of the agricultural areas, as well as the side effects such as erosion due to urban and industrial development at the upstream need to be quantified. Such an information base will enable formulation of strategies and policy decisions drawing the frames for sustainable water and land management plans toward a sustainable regional development. This project aims to assess the basic information needs to establish a base for the preparation of a sustainable water management plan in the GAP region. In this process, participation of all local and national stakeholders is particularly significant. Therefore, the project is formulated to be executed in a multi-stakeholder manner with the involvement of all concerned agencies. D Relationship to other programmes in the same sub-sector The primary objective of the project is to prepare the information base towards a sustainable water quality management plan in the GAP region with the participation of all 46

the local and national stakeholders. Establishing a water quality monitoring program and a data organization map which shows the type of data gathered by any organization, are also important components of the project. The GAP Master Plan that draws a frame for regional development laid down a schedule especially for the development of land and water resources by considering available financial and technical capacities. In this respect the project is also directly in accordance with the one of the four basic target of GAP Master Plan; development and management of water and land resources for both irrigation purposes and for urban-industrial uses. E Development objective and its relation to the country's policies and priorities for the sector/sub-sector Due to transition from rain-fed agriculture to irrigated agriculture in GAP region water resources are facing with the risk of altered hydrological regime and contamination by agricultural nutrients and polluters since the knowledge of irrigated agricultural practice is not settled among farmers. For this reason it is required to prepare a sustainable water management plan in the region for a long time use of water resources including an education program for the farmers. In Turkey, many national and local institutions have certain responsibilities on water resources, but these are very ambiguous that result in uncoordinated management practices. The project aims to bring together the representatives of the all water related national and local institutions and organizations to discuss the possible means of coordination between the institutions, and to discuss on a general frame of sustainable water management in the region, making use of the modeling work. In addition, lack of a common water-monitoring data organization system is one of the important problems in the country. In this project it is aimed to collect all the water monitoring data in a common database or establish a database map, which shows each data produced by different institutions. A common database or a database map for the GAP region will be a first step in establishment of a countrywide database program. F Major elements Activities Party responsible for the activity Consultants (coordination) GAP RDA

Outputs

Output 1 Integration of all water related national and local stakeholders to discuss towards a sustainable water quality management plan

1.1 Constructing an initial project-planning workshop with the representatives of all water related national and local institutions to present the project and to define the role of each institution within the project and within a potential water management plan. 1.2 Defining a strategy for project implementation 1.3 Establishing a Project Steering Committee 1.4 Regular meetings of the Steering Committee

47

Outputs

Activities

Party responsible for the activity Consultants Steering Committee (of pertinent stakeholders)

Output 2 Description of Existing Situation with regards to water quality in the GAP Region.

2.1 Collecting and compiling the past water related data on water quality parameters (general physical and chemical data, nutrient data, pollution data, ecological data etc.) to assess the past water quality condition. 2.2 Collecting all current water related data and conducting new analyses. 2.3 Acquiring of appropriate satellite images to be analyzed in correlation with field analyses. 3.1 Identifying sampling locations (representing all minor catchments) 3.2 Identifying water quality parameters for water quality monitoring within the scope of effects of agricultural and urban-born nutrient and pollution loads. 3.3 Determining period and frequency of sampling as a start-up of a monitoring program 4.1 Assessing the type and quality of water quality data produced by different institutions 4.2 Identifying a suitable database system or data map that shows the type of data produced by any institution. 4.3 Producing different water quality maps for each monitoring parameter, i.e. nutrient quality, pollution, salinity etc., making use of remote sensing and GIS applications at each sampling occasion. 5.1 Selecting an appropriate software for the hydrological modeling (which includes the parameters of water supply, irrigation and drainage, contamination from waste disposal sites, impacts of farming practices, effects of changes in land use, effects of changes in climate 5.2 Constructing and running of the hydrological model with available data. 6.1 Determining the basic needs, implementation projects and an action plan towards a sustainable water management plan.

Output 3 Establishment of a water quality and hydrological monitoring program that employs both remote sensing and field analysis techniques

Consultants Steering Committee (of pertinent stakeholders)

Output 4 Establishment of a common data organization system and computer based water quality map for assessing the temporal and spatial changes in water quality.

Consultants Steering Committee (of pertinent stakeholders)

Output 5 Constructing an integrated hydrological modeling

Consultants Steering Committee (of pertinent stakeholders)

Output 6 Framework for a water quality management plan

Consultants Steering Committee (of pertinent stakeholders)

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G Project strategy The project strategy is to establish the information base to be developed through a continuous monitoring system with a view toward implementation of sustainable water management in the GAP Region. Main focus area of the project is the wide use of remote sensing and GIS technology in the monitoring of a wide area of land. This will enable timely taken measures with regards to development activities on water and soil quality. H Host country commitment GAP Regional Development Administration, under the Office of the Prime Ministry, is the responsible authority for coordinating all sorts of projects geared toward socio-economic development in the South-eastern Anatolian Region of Turkey. The initial Master Plan that was prepared in 1989 had the major goal of enhancing rural and urban development, generating employment, raising income levels and improving of quality of life for the people of the region. A decade of various development projects primarily based on construction of dams and irrigation systems have resulted in social and environmental impacts. It has been realised that the risks of desertification and salinisation of soil were neglected to a recent past as it came to threaten future economy from irrigated agriculture. In this frame, a revised master plan has been under preparation with the overall coordination of the State Planning Organisation and GAP RDA, with the new vision of sustainable development, paying a major concern on the social and environmental issues. As an integrated and multi-sectoral regional development project, GAP brings together central government organisations and local authorities. The State Hydraulic Works under the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources is a significant stakeholder in terms of its responsibility for the development and management of water resources. The State Planning Organisation attached to the Prime Ministry that prepares five-year national development plans and annual investment programs, gives an emphasis to the anticipated challenges in all newly irrigated areas in the GAP region. Such risks related to an important extent with the excessive use of water and agricultural inputs leading to salinization of agricultural land lie within the range of responsibilities of State Hydraulic Works and GAP RDA. I Risk The major risk foreseen is the difficulties in accomplishing coordination between the pertinent stakeholders, which are aimed to be brought together to establish a common data-base of water quality. A difficulty that may rise in access to past information and data on water quality in the region is another factor of risk that can hinder the project flow. J Budget Will be provided at a later stage.

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Appendix 4: Examples of remote sensing projects related to irrigation and drainage systems conducted in the past
Country Argentina Project Water rights Crop identification Crop water requirements Irrigation performance Soil salinity Crop yields Irrigation management Water use efficiency Land use Irrigation performance Evapotranspiration Erosion Crop yield Soil moisture Soil salinity River Nile Discharge forecasting Land use mapping Crop identification Evapotranspiration Soil salinity mapping Organisations involved INCYTH, DGI, DLO-Winand Staring Centre, INTA, CONICET, UNC-FCA

Australia

CSIRO

Bolivia Brazil China

CLAS, ITC EMBRAPA, DHV LIPAP, Ministry of Water Resources, CSIRO, DLO-Winand Staring Centre

Egypt

Ministry of Public Works, Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, Drainage Research Institute, Groundwater Research Institute, Dar AlHandasah, DLO-Winand Staring Centre NRSA, IIT, IIRS, IWMI

India

Crop identification Rice yield Wheat yield Canal lining Land use rice yield Crop water requirement

Indonesia

ITC, FAO

Italy

University of Campobasso, University of Napels, Alterra Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Forestry, ITC, IWMI

Iran

Land use Land evaluation Crop yield forecasting Evapotranspiration Soil moisture Soil salinity Irrigated area Crop yield forecasting Flood control Irrigation management

Mexico Morocco

IMPA, University of Tamaulipus, IWMI, USDA ORMVAG, CEMAGREF, IPTRID, ENGEES

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Country

Project Drainage performance

Organisations involved

Niger

Pond monitoring Evapotranspiration Soil salinity Crop water stress Evapotranspiration Soil moisture Crop yield Soil salinity mapping Evapotranspiration Water rights Desertification monitoring Crop growth Irrigated area Evapotranspiration Evapotranspiration Crop water stress Crop growth Soil moisture Land use Soil salinity Groundwater use for irrigation

CEMAGREF, IPTRID, DLO-Winand Staring Centre, University of Copenhagen CEMAGREF, WAPDA, IWMI, Euroconsult, University of Tsukuba

Pakistan

Senegal Spain

Dar Al-Handasah University of Valencia, University of Castilla la Mancha, Geosys, ITC, EARS

South Africa Turkey

EARS, MaxiFarm GDRS, IWMI, NASA, University of Idaho

USA

USDA, USBR, NASA, University of Idaho, Utah State University, University of New Mexico

Uzbekistan

Royal Haskoning b.v.

Yemen

Ministry of Water Resources, ITC

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Appendix 5: Conclusions of scientific presentations

Soil salinity assessment, Dunia Tabet Conclusions

Unmanaged Salinity: easy identification by RS.Its organization transcends agricultural and cadastral limits. Its evolution indicates farmers capacity to handle the problem Managed Salinity: difficult identification by RS. Disorganised (no particular pattern) and complex. Necessity to take into account farmers practises and management Products scale : medium resolution data: 1:50,000 to 1:20,000; high resolution data: 1/5,000 but expensive References Tabet, D., A. Vidal, D. Zimmer, S. Asif, M. Aslam, M. Kuper and P. Strosser, 1997. Soil salinity characterisation of SPOT images: a case study in one irrigation system of the Punjab, Pakistan, in (eds.) Guyot and Phulpin, Physical measurements and signatures in remote sensing, Balkema, Rotterdam, ISBN 9054109173: 795-800
Salinity as a hazard, Daniel Zimmer Conclusions

Salts behave more as a hazard, rather than a soil state variable Perceptions of farmers on salinity need to be included in the definition of soil salinity Salinity and sodicity need to be separated Remote sensing data needs to be combined with ancillary data (water table, water quality, crop development etc.)

References Tabet, D., D Zimmer, P. Strosser and A. Vidal, 1998. Irrigation management and soil salinity diagnosis a case study in Pakistan, 16th World Congress of Soil Science, 20-26 August, 1998, Montpelllier, France: 8 pp. Agricultural Water Management, Li Jiren Conclusions

The accuracy of investigation by remote sensing and GIS is quite high Consumption of labor and expenditure is low, 10% of traditional method Duration is short, ont third of traditional method Remote sensing and GIS techniques are applicable to investigation of irrigation area References
Kondo, A., A. Higuchi, S. Kishi, T. Fukuzone and J. Li, 1998. The use of multi-temporal NOAA/AVHRR data to monitor surface moisture status in the Huaihe River Basin, China, Adv. Space Research, ol. 22, no. 5: 645-654 Li Jiren, C. Zhedan, X. Fuchuan, L. Jian, W. Wen and C. Lei, 1997. Application of remore sensing and GIS techniques for irrigable land investigation, IAHS Red Book Publ. no.242: 1-5 Yu, T., and G. Tian, 1997. The research on the method of monitoring soil moisture in North China Plain based on NOAA-AVHRR data, phyical measurement and signature in remote sensing, in (eds.) Guyot and Phulpin, A.A. Balkema Rotterdamn, vol.2: 613-619 Drainage systems in relation to salinity, Bernard Vincent

Conclusions 52

The position of fields in relation to drainage canals is important for salinity Cropping intensities provide useful information on salinity occurrances

References Vincent, B., A. Vidal, D. Tabbet, A. Baqri and M. Kuper, 1996. Use of satellite remote sensing for the assessment of waterlogging and salinization as an indication of the performance of drained systems, 16th Congress ICID, Egypt, 15-22 September 1996, New Delhi, India

Drainage and deep percolation, Mobin ud-Din Ahmad Conclusions Numerical models can be used to compute sub-surface drainage and groundwater recharge rates Numerical models can use remotely sensed distributed input data on cropping intensity, crop type, evapotranspiration and soil moisture to cover larger areas References
Ahmad, M.D., W.G.M. Bastiaanssen and R.A. Feddes, 2001. Recycling through recharge and groundwater use of

irrigated fields in Pakistan; Int. J. of Irrigation and Drainage (submitted) Sarwar, A. and R.A. Feddes, 2000. Evaluating drainage design parameters for the Fourth Drainage Project, Pakistan by using SWAP model: part II modeling results, Irrigation and Drainage Systems 14: 281-299 Irrigation performance and drainage effluent, Ricardo Brito Conclusions Remote sensing can help determining the waterbalance Remote sensing can determine soil moisture Remote sensing can describe crop growth and yield Combination of the above makes it feasibe quantify drainage needs and evaluate drainage performance References
Bandara, K.P.M.S., 2001. Monitoring irrigation performance from satellites: a case study from Sri Lanka, Agricultural Water Management (in press) Bastiaanssen, W.G.M., R.A.L. Brito, M.G. Bos, R.A. Souza, E.B. Cavalcanti and M.M. Bakker, 2001. Low cost satellite data for monthly irrigation performance monitoring: benchmarks from Nilo Coelho, Irrigation and Drainage Systems 15: 5379

Land and water information systems, Javier Zuleta

Conclusions

Remote sensing detects illegal irrigation activities Land use maps can be derived from remotely sensed data to plan water allocations Additional information on soil and climate is necessary Costs of very high resolution images (category a) are high

References

DGI, 1999. Mendoza Province Water Plan, basis and proposals for the concensus of a policy of state, Government of Mendoza, General Department of Irrigation DGI, 2000. SIPH, Sistema de Informacion para la Planificacion Hidrica de Mendoza, Gobierno de Mendoza, Departamento General de Irrigacion Leaf Area Index and soil moisture, Jiaguo Qi
Conclusions

Synergy of optical and microwave remote sensing is promising in estimate of soil moisture 53

Multi-regression has better accuracy in field level than pixel level, and shows more details than field survey in higher moisture conditions; References
Sano, E.E., M.S. Moran, A.R. Huette and T. Miura, 1998. C and multiangle Ku-band synthetic aperture radar data for bare soil moisture estimation in agricultural areas, Remote Sensing Env. 64: 77-90

Qi, J., Y.H. Kerr, M.S. Moran, M. Weltz, A.R. Huette, S. Sorooshian and R. Bryant, 2000. Leaf area index estimates using remotely sensed data and BRDF models in a semiarid region, Rem. Sens. Env. (in press) Wang, C., J. Qi, M.S. Moran and R. Marsett, 2001. Soil moisture estimation in a semiarid rangeland using ERS-2 and TM imagery (submitted) Soil salinity mapping, Leonardo Pulido
Conclusions

There is a relationship between wheat yield Thematic Mapper bands 2, 3 and 4 (r=0.80) There is a relationship between of the weighted electrical conductivity of the root zone and Thematic Mapper bands 2, 3 and 4 (r=0.86) Wheat crop can be identified through unsupervised classification techniques

References Brena, J, L. Sanvicente and L. Pulido., 1995. Salinity assessment in Mexico, in (ed.) Vidal, FAO Water Report 4: 190-1906 Pulido, L.M., H.S. Sanvicente, C.Z. Rodriguez and C.L. Wiegand, 1996. Using Landsat TM and SPOT satellite images to identify salinity in irrigated areas of Mexico, ICID, 16th congress, Cairo, Q46-p.21: 52-53 Pulido, M.L, J. Gonzalez-Meraz, B. Robles-Rubio and C.L. Wiegand, 1997. Soil salinity surveying using satellite imagery and a portable sensor, Proc. of the int. symposium on sustainable management of salt affected soils in the arid ecosystem, Cairo, Egypt, 21-26 September 1997: 85-96 Pulido, L. B. Robles, C.L. Wiegand, J. Gonzalez and H. Sanvicente, 1998. Advances in the use of remote sensors to detect soil salinity in Mexican irrigation districts, World Congress of Soil Science, symp. no. 17, Montpellier, France. Wiegand, C.L., J.D. Rhoades, D.E. Escobar and J.H. Everitt, 1994. Photographic and videographic observations for determining and mapping the response of cotton to soil salinity, Rem. Sens. Of Env. 48: 1-25

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