Monitoring and management of agricultural water and land use
Image: Center-pivot irrigated fields in the Central United States
Summary
Agriculture accounts for over 70% of water use worldwide. However, irrigation water use is often not directly monitored, and, in some parts of the world, high rates of abstraction have led degradation of connected freshwater ecosystems, conflict between water users and concerns about long-term sustainability of rural economies. Our research addresses these challenges by working with farmers, industry and government to design management and incentive-based policy solutions that support sustainable, profitable and efficient use of freshwater resources in agriculture. Our work seeks to enable implementation of improved policies in practice by working decision-makers to develop solutions to enable scalable and cost-effective monitoring of agricultural water use. A key area of ongoing research within our group is the development and evaluation of earth observation tools for water use accounting, in particular the technical, social and economic challenges and opportunities for use of satellite data in monitoring and enforcement of agricultural land and water rights.
Related outputs
Foster, T., Mieno, T., & Brozovic, N. (2020). Satellite‐based monitoring of irrigation water use: assessing measurement errors and their implications for agricultural water management policy. Water Resources Research, e2020WR028378
Foster, T., Goncalves, I.Z., Campos, I., Neale, C.M.U., & Brozovic, N. (2019) Assessing landscape scale heterogeneity in irrigation water use with remote sensing and in-situ monitoring. Environmental Research Letters.
Foster, T., Brozovic, N., & Butler, A. P. (2017). Effects of initial aquifer conditions on economic benefits from groundwater conservation. Water Resources Research, 53(1), 744-762.
Foster, T., Brozović, N., & Speir, C. (2017). The buffer value of groundwater when well yield is limited. Journal of Hydrology, 547, 638-649.
Foster, T., Goncalves, I.Z., Campos, I., Neale, C.M.U., & Brozovic, N. (2019) Assessing landscape scale heterogeneity in irrigation water use with remote sensing and in-situ monitoring. Environmental Research Letters.
Foster, T., Brozovic, N., & Butler, A. P. (2017). Effects of initial aquifer conditions on economic benefits from groundwater conservation. Water Resources Research, 53(1), 744-762.
Foster, T., Brozović, N., & Speir, C. (2017). The buffer value of groundwater when well yield is limited. Journal of Hydrology, 547, 638-649.
