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by Sander Zwart
tons/ha
kg/m3
0.50.6 0.60.7 0.70.8 0.80.9 0.91.0 > 1.0 40
Rice Today July-September 2011
evapotranspiration, rice yield, and water productivity during the 2006 wet season. SEBAL calculates, on a pixel-by-pixel basis, the components of the surface energy balance using surface temperature information gathered by satellites and standard meteorological measurements of air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and incoming radiation. The maps show a significant variation between different locations in the system, indicating that scarce water resources are not used efficiently throughout the system. Average water productivity in the most northern zone and the zone located along the Niger amounts to 3 0.6 kilogram per cubic meter (kg/m ), whereas the centrally located zones show values of 0.7 to 0.8 kg/m3. Also, at field level, the variation in water productivity is high, indicating that farmers can still become more productive with their water resources. Although the global average value of water productivity is 1.0 kg/ m3, this value cannot be set as a benchmark as a result of prevailing unfavorable conditions regarding the climate and soil fertility. The causes of high and low water productivity can be investigated by combining these maps with soil fertility, groundwater levels, water quality, irrigation infrastructure, and measured water supplies, among other secondary information. Unproductive and inefficient areas can be located and appropriate measures taken to improve the systems irrigation performance. Examples are improvement of drainage infrastructure, reduction of irrigation water supplies to better match demand, and improvement of field water and fertility management. The technical and scientific details on this study were published in Zwart SJ, Leclert LMC. 2010. A remote sensing-based irrigation performance assessment: a case study of the Office du Niger in Mali. Irrigation Science 28:371-385. Dr. Zwart is a remote sensing and geographic information systems specialist at Africa Rice Center.
Rice yield
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