Customer: University of Cádiz - REMABAR project (Analysis of strategies to reduce evaporation losses and improve aquifer status under a climate change context in the Barbate Basin) - Financed through the "Fundación Biodiversidad" of the Spanish ministry for ecological transition.

Objective: Explore the potential of processing and integrating remote sensing information from the European Space Agency (ESA)-Sentinel satellite missions and local data to improve water management, in relation to agriculture and biodiversity, monitoring evolution of water layers and irrigation in agricultural fields during dry periods.

How we did it: Satellite images are integrated with local data on land use, climatic and elevation data through the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Indexes to identify flooded areas (Normalized Differenced Water Index, NDWI) and Field Moisture levels (Normalized Differenced Moisture Index, NDMI) were developed, adapted and integrated with land uses and local climatic data. This enabled visualization on when and where floodings take place, if they are caused by agricultural practices or climatic events or evolution of water layers in reservoirs. Additionally, through NDMI it was possible to identify irrigated surface during dry periods in agricultural parcels with or without irrigation licenses located over an overexplotaited aquifer, and the levels of water stress in irrigated areas.

Read the report (in Spanish, executive summary in English) here.