Small-Scale Catchment Analysis of Water Stress in Wet Regions of the U.S.: An Example from Louisiana

Groundwater is increasingly being overdrafted in the Southeastern U.S., despite abundant rainfall and the apparent availability of surface water. Using the state of Louisiana as an example, the current study quantifies the stresses on water resources and investigates the potential for opportunities to use surface water in lieu of groundwater pumping. The assessment is based on a fine watershed scale (12-digit Hydrological Unit Code [HUC] boundaries) water balance between the availability of surface and groundwater and surface water and groundwater demand. Water demand includes environmental flows, as well as public supply, rural domestic, industrial, power generation, agricultural, and aquaculture sectors. The seasonality of water stress is also addressed by incorporating monthly variations in surface water supply and irrigation demands. We develop several new weighting schemes to disaggregate the water withdrawals, provided by the U.S. Geological Survey on a county scale, to the HUC12 scale. The analysis on the smaller HUC12 scale is important for identifying areas with high water stress that would otherwise be masked at a larger scale (e.g. the county or HUC8 watershed scales). The results indicate that the annual water stress in Louisiana is below one (i.e. there is more water available than is used) for most watersheds; however, some watersheds (15 of the HUC12 units) show stresses greater than one, indicating an insufficient water supply to meet existing demands. The areas of the highest water stress are largely attributable to water consumption for power generating plants or irrigation. Moreover, estimating the stresses on surface water and groundwater sources separately confirms our speculation of abundant surface water and demonstrates a significant over-drafting/deficit of groundwater in many of the states aquifer systems. These results have implications for identifying new opportunities for reallocation of surface water use to reduce groundwater pumping and improve water sustainability in the region. Seasonal fluctuations in surface water supply and water withdrawals for irrigation highlight the fact that the water system is under more stress during the summer season. This observation underscores the need for infrastructure for shortterm surface water storage in agricultural regions. The water budget analysis presented here can be useful for stakeholders in developing water management plans and can also help to inform the development of a water code that will enable Louisiana to successfully manage and conserve its water resources for the future

A Fusion Approach for Water Area Classification Using Visible, near Infrared and Synthetic Aperture Radar for South Asian Conditions

Consistent estimation of water surface area from remote sensing remains challenging in regions such as South Asia with vegetation, mountainous topography, and persistent monsoonal cloud cover. High-resolution optical imagery, which is often used for global inundation mapping, is highly impacted by clouds, while synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery is not impacted by clouds and is affected by both topographic layover and vegetation. Here, we compare and contrast inundation extent measurements from visible (Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2) and SAR (Sentinel-1) imagery. Each data type (wavelength) has complementary strengths and weaknesses which were gauged separately over selected water bodies in Bangladesh. High-resolution cloud-free PlanetScope imagery at 3-m resolution was used as a reference to check the accuracy of each technique and data type. Next, the optical and radar images were fused for a rule-based water area classification algorithm to derive the optimal decision for the water mask. Results indicate that the fusion approach can improve the overall accuracy by up to 3.8%, 18.2%, and 8.3% during the wet season over using the individual products of Landsat8, Sentinel-1, and Sentinel-2, respectively, at three sites, while providing increased observational frequency. The fusion-derived products resulted in overall accuracy ranging from 85.8% to 98.7% and Kappa coefficient varying from 0.61 to 0.83. The proposed SAR-visible fusion technique has potential for improving satellite-based surface water monitoring and storage changes, especially for smaller water bodies in humid tropical climate of South Asia

EFFECT OF WATER MANAGEMENT BY DRIP IRRIGATION AUTOMATION CONTROLLER SYSTEM ON FABA BEAN PRODUCTION UNDER WATER DEFICIT

ABSTRACT: Field experiments were carried out at the Agricultural Research and Production Station, NRC, ElNubaria district, Egypt during the winter season of 2012 and 2013 growing seasons in a sandy soil with Faba bean (Vica Faba L.G461) under automation controller drip irrigation system, to study the effect of water deficit (50, 75, and 100 % FC, field capacities) and compost tea additions (100 and 50 liter/fed) on faba bean yield, water and fertilizers use efficiency (WUE, FUE). The obtained results showed that the faba bean yield, WUE and FUE were superior by using compost tea (100 liters/fed and100 % FC) while the lowest values results were attained after using 50 liters/fed compost tea and 50 % FC. It could be concluded that the biggest added amount of compost tea 100 liters/fed impacted positively on Faba bean plants because they contain more amount of macro and micro nutrients and it helps save water under sandy soil conditions. Faba bean plants avoid the water stress under 100 % FC but adversely affected by water stress under FC (50 and 75%)

The Restoration of the Cities’ Water Waterfront after the COVID-19 Pandemic, Case of Al Khobar City, Saudi Arabia

The residents of coastal cities have a strong relationship with the waterfront, which people of different ages, types, levels of awareness, and cultural backgrounds use. People of different cultures tend to use these open spaces with various responses. They consider it a lung for them, and practice most of their entertainment and social events with different attitudes. Therefore, municipalities spend a large budget on designing, implementing, and developing these areas. However, sadly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the local authorities in many cities decided to shut down the city, including the waterfront area. Al Khobar city, Saudi Arabia, was one of the cities had that had a broad lockdown. Consequently, the use of open spaces became dangerous, and municipalities placed many restrictions on using such spaces to control the spread of COVID-19. Residents had no opportunity to use them for exercise, sports, social activities, or even for enjoying the fresh air, negatively influencing their lives at different levels. This research discusses this problem and examines the restoration of the waterfront after the authorities announced a decrease in the status of the hazards of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study will consider returning safely to using the waterfront and allowing it to be accessible to the public, like before the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, it will suggest recommendations for the future use of the waterfront in a secure way to prevent the spread of such viruses

Accounting for Inter-Annual and Seasonal Variability in Assessment of Water Supply Stress: Perspectives from a Humid Region in the USA

Stresses on water systems can be quantitatively assessed through indices that account for water demand relative to water availability, e.g., the Water Supply Stress Index (WaSSI). However, as a result of adopting deterministic supply-driven approaches, limited attention is paid to the potential impacts of climatic variability on quantifying water stresses. The current study aimed to account for the impacts of inter-annual and intra-annual variability in the WaSSI stress index and to provide insights into potential opportunities for better water management practices. The results from our analysis indicate that looking only at average stresses can substantially mask the important impacts of climate variability. Louisiana, as a typical example of humid regions in the USA, is subjected to high levels of stresses (WaSSI exceeds 1.0) with higher inter-annual variability in watersheds where thermoelectric power plants exist and extensive water is used for cooling process. In addition, intra-annual variability in some watersheds shows periodicity in terms of seasonal stress distributions due to variability in surface water supply and water demand. Our analysis indicated that the stress variability grows as the median WaSSI increases but up to a certain threshold level and then the variability decreases for very high stress levels. For the annual and monthly scales, the peak variability, quantified as the width of the 2.5-97.5 stress percentiles, reached 68% for a median annual WaSSI of 1.00 and 100% for a median monthly WaSSI of 1.15, respectively. Various decisions related to water use and management can be driven by such variability, at both annual and intra-annual scales. Hence, these results have important implications for applied water resource studies aiming to formulate water management policies and improve water system sustainability under climate variability

Maximizing crop water productivity from the water unit: Effect of N and P fertilizers rates on the peanut plant growth and yield parameters under different water stress

Egypt is currently suffering from the vast increase in population that is increasing water consumption whether for domestic use or by other sectors especially, the agricultural one, which consumed more than 80 % of the water income. Experiment was conducted under drip irrigation system in the sandy soils of the experimental Farm of the National Research Centre, El-Nubaria, El-Behera governorate. The aim of this work is to study the effect of the N (0, 25; 50 kg/fed) and P (0, 10, 20, 30) fertilizers at different rates on the growth, yield parameters and crop water productivity (CWP) of peanut plant.  Resulted data showed that application of N and P at the rates of and kg/fed, respectively on peanut crop to increase yield and enhance quality. CWP increased in the current experiments in the following order of 60>80>100 % ETo despite the reduction in crop yield. The quality attributes of oil and protein contents significantly improved by irrigation levels, N and/or P fertilizers application rates and their interactions.&nbsp

Maximizing Crop Water Productivity From the Water Unit: Effect of N and P Fertilizers Rates on the Peanut Plant Growth and Yield Parameters Under Different Water Stress

Egypt is currently suffering from the vast increase in population that is increasing water consumption whether for domestic use or by other sectors especially, the agricultural one, which consumed more than 80 % of the water income. Experiment was conducted under drip irrigation system in the sandy soils of the experimental Farm of the National Research Centre, El-Nubaria, El-Behera governorate. The aim of this work is to study the effect of the N (0, 25; 50 kg/fed) and P (0, 10, 20, 30) fertilizers at different rates on the growth, yield parameters and crop water productivity (CWP) of peanut plant.  Resulted data showed that application of N and P at the rates of and kg/fed, respectively on peanut crop to increase yield and enhance quality. CWP increased in the current experiments in the following order of 60>80>100 % ETo despite the reduction in crop yield. The quality attributes of oil and protein contents significantly improved by irrigation levels, N and/or P fertilizers application rates and their interactions.&nbsp