Synoptic assessment of water resource variability in reservoirs by remote sensing: General approach and application to the runoff harvesting systems of south India

Mialhe, François; Gunnell, Yanni; Méring, Catherine

doi:10.1029/2007wr006065

Cited by 43 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Unfortunately, there is a lack of empirical studies that quantify tank hydrologic fluxes, especially at the scale of watersheds comprising of multiple tanks (Glendenning et al, 2012;Mialhe et al, 2008;Pandey et al, 2011Pandey et al, , 2013. One reason for the lack of information is that both groundwater recharge and ET are highly spatially variable, and thus difficult to accurately measure at the field scale (Glendenning et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The socioecohydrology of rainwater harvesting in India: understanding water storage and release dynamics across spatial scales

Meter

Steiff

McLaughlin

et al. 2016

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Rainwater harvesting (RWH), the small-scale collection and storage of runoff for irrigated agriculture, is recognized as a sustainable strategy for ensuring food security, especially in monsoonal landscapes in the developing world. In south India, these strategies have been used for millennia to mitigate problems of water scarcity. However, in the past 100 years many traditional RWH systems have fallen into disrepair due to increasing dependence on groundwater. This dependence has contributed to accelerated decline in groundwater resources, which has in turn led to increased efforts at the state and national levels to revive older RWH systems. Critical to the success of such efforts is an improved understanding of how these ancient systems function in contemporary landscapes with extensive groundwater pumping and shifted climatic regimes. Knowledge is especially lacking regarding the water-exchange dynamics of these RWH tanks at tank and catchment scales, and how these exchanges regulate tank performance and catchment water balances. Here, we use fine-scale, water-level variation to quantify daily fluxes of groundwater, evapotranspiration (ET), and sluice outflows in four tanks over the 2013 northeast monsoon season in a tank cascade that covers a catchment area of 28 km 2 . At the tank scale, our results indicate that groundwater recharge and irrigation outflows comprise the largest fractions of the tank water budget, with ET accounting for only 13-22 % of the outflows. At the scale of the cascade, we observe a distinct spatial pattern in groundwater-exchange dynamics, with the frequency and magnitude of groundwater inflows increasing down the cascade of tanks. The significant magnitude of return flows along the tank cascade leads to the most downgradient tank in the cascade having an outflow-to-capacity ratio greater than 2. At the catchment scale, the presence of tanks in the landscape dramatically alters the catchment water balance, with runoff decreasing by nearly 75 %, and recharge increasing by more than 40 %. Finally, while water from the tanks directly satisfies ∼ 40 % of the crop water requirement across the northeast monsoon season via surface water irrigation, a large fraction of the tank water is "wasted", and more efficient management of sluice outflows could lead to tanks meeting a higher fraction of crop water requirements.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The socioecohydrology of rainwater harvesting in India: understanding water storage and release dynamics across spatial scales

Meter

Steiff

McLaughlin

et al. 2016

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…Envisat ASAR (Cband radar) and Landsat TM/ETM+ data (multispectral imagery) now provide images at spatial resolutions of 30 m and 15 m, respectively (Gardini et al, 1995). In India, the storage volumes of small-sized reservoirs were estimated with Landsat images (Mialhe et al, 2008). Envisat advanced synthetic aperture radar (ASAR) was used to obtain the surface areas of reservoirs (Liebe et al, 2009).…”

Section: Surface Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated hydrological modelling of small- and medium-sized water storages with application to the upper Fengman Reservoir Basin of China

Zhang

Peng

Chu

et al. 2012

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Hydrological simulation in regions with a large number of water storages is difficult due to inaccurate water storage data. To address this issue, this paper presents an improved version of SWAT2005 (Soil and Water Assessment Tool, version 2005) using Landsat, a satellite-based dataset, an empirical storage classification method and some empirical relationships to estimate water storage and release from the various sizes of flow detention and regulation facilities. The SWAT2005 is enhanced by three features: (1) a realistic representation of the relationships between the surface area and volume of each type of water storages, ranging from small-sized flow detention ponds to medium-and large-sized reservoirs with the various flow regulation functions; (2) water balance and transport through a network combining both sequential and parallel streams and storage links; and (3) calibrations for both physical and human interference parameters. Through a real-world watershed case study, it is found that the improved SWAT2005 more accurately models small-and medium-sized storages than the original model in reproducing streamflows in the watershed. The improved SWAT2005 can be an effective tool to assess the impact of water storage on hydrologic processes, which has not been well addressed in the current modelling exercises.

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“…The RS technique enables changes in the reservoir to be monitored since the images provide synoptic, repetitive and timely information across the whole area of the reservoir (Mialhe et al, 2008). Furthermore, free availability of images from the Landsat program, especially with the new improvements incorporated in the Operational Land Imager (OLI) sensor onboard Landsat-8, which has the potential to monitor changes in the Earth's land cover and take measurements of terrestrial surface waters remotely (Alsdorf et al, 2007;Roy et al, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of Surface Water at the Sobradinho Reservoir Under the Effects of Drought Using Multi-Temporal Landsat Images

Silva¹,

Pedrosa²,

Azevedo³

et al. 2016

Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci.

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ABSTRACT:The matrix of energy generation in Brazil is predominantly hydroelectric power. Consequently, the reservoirs need constant monitoring due to the large volume of artificially dammed water. Images from remote sensing can provide reliable information concerning water bodies. In this paper, we use remote sensing imagery to monitor the Sobradinho dam in three different epochs. The objective was to verify quantitatively the area of the dam's surface reduced due to the drought of 2015, which was considered the worst in history. The approach used water surface area estimations from bands of Landsat5 and Landsat8 satellites which highlight water bodies better from other features present on surface of the Earth. Through the techniques of growth region and normalized difference water index (NDWI), we determined the surface area of the reservoir in 2011 and calculated the decrease caused by the drought. By analyzing the numbers provided by the results it is possible to estimate how the Sobradinho reservoir has been affected by the drastic drought. The results show that the Landsat images enable the monitoring of large reservoirs. Bearing in mind that monitoring is a primary and indispensable tool, not only for technical study, but also for economic and environmental research, it can help establish planning projects and water administration strategies for future decisions about the hydrical resource priority.

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Synoptic assessment of water resource variability in reservoirs by remote sensing: General approach and application to the runoff harvesting systems of south India

Cited by 43 publications

References 21 publications

The socioecohydrology of rainwater harvesting in India: understanding water storage and release dynamics across spatial scales

The socioecohydrology of rainwater harvesting in India: understanding water storage and release dynamics across spatial scales

Integrated hydrological modelling of small- and medium-sized water storages with application to the upper Fengman Reservoir Basin of China

Assessment of Surface Water at the Sobradinho Reservoir Under the Effects of Drought Using Multi-Temporal Landsat Images

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