Salah Er-Raki
Cadi Ayyad University
Morocco
Title: Using satellite remote sensing data for mapping crop water requirement in semi-arid region
Biography
Biography: Salah Er-Raki
Abstract
Estimates of crop water requirements using remote sensing data are essential in effective planning of irrigation water use in arid and semiarid regions. The Haouz plain that surrounds the city of Marrakech (Center of Morocco) is classified among regions in the country facing strong water shortages. This is mainly due the combined effect of persistent drought and the increase of water demands related to increase in irrigated surfaces, urbanization and tourism recreational projects. There is thus a crucial need to develop tools for better management of irrigation water use through accurate estimates of crop water requirement at a regional scale. Remote sensing can provide fundamental, new scientific information, where data can be obtained systematically over large geographic areas rather than just single-point observations. This work, which is part of the activities of the SudMed program and the International Joint Laboratory TREMA (http://trema.ucam.ac.ma), aims to derive crop water requirements maps from remote sensing data (SPOT, LANDSAT, MODIS,..) through the use of the relationships between the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and crop biophysical variables such as crop coefficient, cover fraction.