Remote Sensing (RS) data production
“Remote sensing plays an increasingly important role in providing the information needed to confront key water challenges:
- In poorly gauged basins, at time intervals of several days, real-time satellite estimates of precipitation and derived streamflow forecasts can help managers to allocate water among users and to operate reservoirs more efficiently;
- In large rivers, data on river and lake surface elevation can be used to estimate flow in the upper parts of the basin and to predict flow downstream;
- Soil moisture observations may give insight into how much irrigation is needed, as well as help to forecast and monitor drought conditions;
- Water managers in snow-dominated areas can use estimates of snow cover and snow water equivalent to assess how much water is in storage and determine what watersheds it is stored in;
- Remote sensing also enables the monitoring of many parameters of surface water quality to assess the repercussions of river basin management policies, land use practices, and non- point-source pollution as well as the likelihood of algal blooms and other threats to the quality of water supply systems;
- In situations involving the food-water- energy nexus, governance and adaptive management, or transboundary settings, remote sensing may help decision makers to adjust past policies or facilitate early warnings by providing information from parts of a basin lying outside a nation’s borders.
There is also great potential for RS data use in operations related to climate variability and change, agricultural systems, and water systems planning and management. Actual or planned uses of RS products vary from the evaluation of a project’s impact on agricultural water management, agricultural water-saving measures, and support services to the provision of input for modern, basin-wide water resources information systems; feasibility studies; basin planning, monitoring, and forecasting; transboundary options for mitigating flood risks; investment planning and basin decision support systems; and institutional or community planning frameworks for addressing environmental and social issues.” (source: WB document “Earth Observation for Water Resources Management”)