Researchers turn to drones, satellites to track water use
Erin Hestir, assis- tant professor at the University of
Like many other researchers, en- vironmental engineering professors Erin Hestir and Joshua Viers of the University of California, Merced, are trying to quantify water use in the San Joaquin Valley. The difference is they are doing it from the sky. Through NASA’s applied sciences pro- gram, their team will leverage the power of Earth-orbiting satellites and drones to gather data with high spatial and tempo- ral resolution and then analyze it to help water resource managers make better-in- formed decisions. The NASA team is collaborating with Point Blue Conservation Science, a nonprofit science team based in the San Francisco Bay Area that seeks solu- tions to address biodiversity loss from climate change. Hestir said the project “will help us bet- ter balance water allocation not only for human uses such as agriculture, which are really important, but also to make sure we are sustaining biodiversity and ecosystem functioning critical to the valley.” Water is a limited resource across the West. Over the past 100 years, an exten- sive system of reservoirs and water con- veyance structures have been engineered
to support the needs of human commu- nities, agriculture and ecosystems. Model projections suggest water may become even more limited as increasing frequency and severity of drought test water management programs. “The Central Valley… is a nexus for wa- ter resources and epitomizes the chal- lenges facing water systems in the West,” the researchers wrote in their proposal. Another partner in the project is Grassland Water District, which seeks to maximize the use of limited water avail- able for ecosystem functioning, as well as waterfowl and shorebird habitat. The dis- trict, located in Merced County, manages more than 75,000 acres of wetlands for the Grassland Resource Conservation District. Effectively quantifying water use is par- ticularly important now that the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act has gone into effect. The act re- quires all groundwater users to form Groundwater Sustainability Agencies and develop Groundwater Sustainability Plans, or GSPs, for groundwater basins. Although managed wetlands are an essential component of water use plan- ning and budgeting, there are limited data about the extent and magnitude of man- aged flooding—often for the purposes of
California, Merced, is using NASA satellite
images to gather data on Central
Valley water use. The data may aid region- al water managers.
providing habitat for waterfowl and sup- porting local duck clubs—that can be used to inform water budget models. Satellites have been able to track sur- face water in different wetlands across the Central Valley, but not yet the depth of the water. That’s where UC Merced and Point Blue come in. A central component of the NASA-funded project is developing algorithms that mine satellite data to de- termine the extent, depth and duration of flooded fields and wetlands. “The ability to generate data on water depth to populate wetland water bud- gets…will increase the capacity to inform GSPs in a cost-effective way,” wrote Ric Ortega, general manager of the Grassland Water District. “Rather than assuming there is water in the wetlands because it’s been released from the rivers,” Hestir said, “we’re going to
try to use new, cutting-edge NASA technol- ogy, including space-based sensors as well as drone sensors to create three-dimen- sional representations of the landscape.” She said, “That will help us understand how much water is truly in the wetlands, which will give people more information when it comes to deciding on how to bal- ance all the different needs.” The project will also help answer import- ant questions, such as how changes in land management will affect water use and how water use varies across extreme events, par- ticularly drought and flood. This research builds on more than a decade of water re- search led by UC Merced that is specific to the San Joaquin Valley and its watersheds. “In our dry years, every drop counts,” Hestir said. (This story was originally published by the University of California, Merced.)
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