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Mapping and assessing water use in a Central Asian irrigation system by utilizing MODIS remote sensing products

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Irrigation and Drainage Systems

Abstract

Spatial and temporal patterns of water depletion in the irrigated land of Khorezm, a region located in Central Asia in the lower floodplains of the Amu Darya River, were mapped and monitored by means of MODIS land products. Land cover and land use were classified by using a recursive partitioning and regression tree with 250 m MODIS Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series. Seasonal actual evapotranspiration (ETact) was obtained by applying the Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land (SEBAL) to 1 km daily MODIS data. Elements of the SEBAL based METRIC model (Mapping Evapotranspiration at high Resolution and with Internalized Calibration) were adopted and modified. The upstream–downstream difference in irrigation was reflected by analyzing agricultural land use and amounts of depleted water (ETact) using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The validity of the MODIS albedo and emissivity used for modeling ETact was assessed with data extracted from literature. The r 2 value of 0.6 indicated a moderate but significant association between ETact and class-A-pan evaporation. Deviations of ETact from the 10-day reference evapotranspiration of wheat and cotton were found to be explainable. In Khorezm, seasonal maximum values superior to 1,200 and 1,000 mm ETact were estimated for rice and cotton fields, respectively. Spatio-temporal comparisons of agricultural land use with seasonal ETact disclosed unequal water consumption in Khorezm. Seasonal ETact on agricultural land decreased with increasing distance to the water intake points of the irrigation system (972–712 mm). Free MODIS data provided reliable, exhaustive, and consistent information on water use relevant for decision support in Central Asian water management.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF; project number 0339970C). We are especially grateful to Dr. Gerd Ruecker from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Omonbek Salaev from the GIS Center in Urgench, Uzbekistan, for preparing and providing field training samples of land use and essential meteorological and GIS data. We also would like to thank Dr. Tobias Landmann, Department of Geography, University of Wuerzburg, and Susan Giegerich and René Colditz, German Aerospace Center, for their useful comments. The MODIS data used in this study were acquired as part of NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise. The algorithms were developed by the MODIS Science Teams. The data were processed by the MODIS Adaptive Processing System (MODAPS) and Goddard Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC), and are archived and distributed by the Goddard DAAC. We are grateful for the valuable comments from two anonymous reviewers on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Remote Sensing Unit, Department of Geography, University of Wuerzburg, Am Hubland, 97074, Wuerzburg, Germany

    Christopher Conrad & Stefan W. Dech

  2. German Aerospace Center (DLR)–German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD), Oberpfaffenhofen, 82234, Wessling, Germany

    Christopher Conrad, Stefan W. Dech & Günter Strunz

  3. Land and Water Division, Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organization, CSIRO, Locked Mail Bag 588, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2678, Australia

    Mohsin Hafeez

  4. Center for Development Research (ZEF), Walter-Flex-Strasse 3, 53113, Bonn, Germany

    John Lamers & Christopher Martius

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  1. Christopher Conrad
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Conrad, C., Dech, S.W., Hafeez, M. et al. Mapping and assessing water use in a Central Asian irrigation system by utilizing MODIS remote sensing products. Irrig Drainage Syst 21, 197–218 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10795-007-9029-z

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