Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2008NM90B

Estimating Water Use through Satellite Remote Sensing (Bleiweiss)

Institute: New Mexico
Year Established: 2008 Start Date: 2008-03-01 End Date: 2009-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $30,000 Total Non-Federal Funds: $13,530

Principal Investigators: Max Bleiweiss, Zohrab Samani, Rhonda Skaggs

Project Summary: A recent evaluation of the water budget of the Lower Rio Grande has shown that 56% of water is unaccounted for (Magallanez and Samani, 2001). The 56% likely includes domestic water use, riparian vegetation use, supplementary farm irrigation pumping and off-season runoff. In order to better account for the various uses of water and sources of beneficial and non-beneficial use, and ultimately to optimize the use of water resources, a realistic evaluation of the amount and spatial and temporal variation of ET is needed.