Determination of irrigated crop consumptive water use by remote sensing and GIS techniques for river basins
Date
1992-10
Authors
Wagner, David G., author
Podmore, Terence H., author
Hoffer, Roger M., author
U.S. Committee on Irrigation and Drainage, publisher
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
This paper outlines a method for using remote sensed data from Landsat TM satellites and geographic information systems (GISes) to model the evapotranspiration requirements of irrigated cropland within the Cache la Poudre River basin, a tributary of the South Platte River. The flexibility of a GIS allows the model to evaluate specific crops or combinations of crops growing in any specified area or sub-area of the basin over any fraction of the growing season and to compute the spatially distributed crop evapotranspiration. Development of this model will allow modeling and evaluation of the South Platte Basin which contains a Significant percentage of the irrigated lands of the Colorado Front Range. Progress on this project to date includes the classification of irrigated agricultural crops. Five major irrigated crops have been identified using Landsat TM multitemporal data sets and computer aided classification techniques. Crop species classification accuracies range from 65 to 94 percent. These crop maps comprise the crop map data layers for the evapotranspiration GIS model. Additional work to be accomplished in the first quarter of 1993 is the programming of the GIS model and the generation of weather and soils data layers and development of the basin water balance. The basin water balance will be used for checking the accuracy and precision of the evapotranspiration model.
Description
Presented at Irrigation and water resources in the 1990's: proceedings from the 1992 national conference held on October 5-7, 1992 in Phoenix, Arizona.