Agriculture consumes a great deal of water. As demand for water increases, the pressure’s on to make sure every drop counts.
Water specialists Rick Allen, Bill Kramber and Tony Morse have created an innovative satellite-based method that maps agricultural water consumption. The team uses Landsat thermal band data to measure the amount of water evaporating from the soil and transpiring from plants’ leaves. Evapotranspiring water absorbs energy, so farm fields consuming more water appear cooler in the thermal band. The Landsat observations provide an objective way for water managers to assess on a field-by-field basis how much water agricultural growers are using. Landsat is a joint program of NASA and the US Geological Survey.
The
Images and Video's in the gallery pages may be protected by
copyright. You may download one copy for non-commercial personal
use to be displayed on your personal computer. Use other then
non-commercial requires that you obtain permission if
copyrighted from the copyright holder. See disclaimer page for
more detail. We will help direct you to the proper source if you
are unsure of copyright holder or your usage. Please always state
proper source / credit.
