Irrigated agriculture assisted by satellite images. Water Technology and Sciences, formerly

Abstract

In 2000, the European Commission financed a project known as DEMETER(Demostration of Earth Observation Technologies in Routine Irrigation Advisory Services) to find innovative technologies that would allow improving water use efficiency and productivity in irrigation in Mediterranean countries, such as Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Considering the success of this project, the Commission has financed another more ambitious project in which 11 countries and 23 research and educational institutions have been involved. The project was called Participatory multi-Level EO-assisted tools for Irrigation water management and Agricultural Decision-Support, (PLEIADeS), and Mexico was one of the beneficiaries. This project was established during the period from 2006 to 2009, in the State of Sonora, in northern Mexico, , and the main objective, among several others, was to support the producers of the irrigation districts in this state, in order to improve the use of water in land irrigation.Related to this project, some of the technologies developed in Europe were tested and adapted in three Irrigation Districts, the Hermosillo Coast, the Mayo River and the Yaqui River. Using information from several water users from these districts, the methodologies have been tested and adapted to evaluate the development of the wheat crop using images from satellites Landsat 5 and 7. In this study, some functions have been obtained, correlating vegetation indices and evapotranspiration to crop yield, which make it possible to evaluate the effect of water applied to soil and input management. Also the System of Participatory Information Decision Support and Expert knowledge for River basin management (SPIDER), was adapted for the use of water users. The results of this study show the possibility of developing methodologies to transfer information to the water users which can be useful to improve soil, water and input management to get better crop yields.