Benchmarking water productivity in agriculture and the scope for improvement - remote sensing modelling from field to global scale

Agriculture is the largest consumer and water. In the context of an increasing population and less water available for the agricultural sector, the water productivity needs to be sustained or increased to secure food security. This study provides benchmark values for water productivity for the major crops globally. Data were obtained from a literature review of measured water productivity values from field experiments, whereas remote sensing and modelling were used to assess the water productivity of wheat on a regional and on a global scale. The SEBAL model was applied to obtain spatially distributed values of water productivity in eight irrigated wheat systems globally. The analysis showed that the scope for improvement is significant in several of these systems in China, Pakistan and India. A new model, WATPRO, was developed that was applied on a global scale to benchmark water productivity of wheat at the beginning of the millennium.WatermanagementCivil Engineering and Geoscience

Seasonal evaluation of the land surface scheme HTESSEL against remote sensing derived energy fluxes of the Transdanubian region in Hungary

Civil Engineering and Geoscience