NASA evapotranspiration data significantly improve operational water management for the State of New Mexico

Abstract:

Remotely sensed evapotranspiration (ET) has matured to operational status in water management and decision making. ET data are produced from spaceborne missions such as Landsat, ECOSTRESS, and MODIS, for example, and are delivered via tools such as Google Earth Engine, OpenET, and tailored applications customized to individual users.

Here, we describe how NASA ET data are being used operationally at the State level in one of the most arid states in the US—New Mexico. The data are used across agriculture, water rights, forest maintenance, and river management centralized through the Office of the State Engineer, and connected to partnering institutions from Federal to local levels. A key need has been field-scale ET across decades to demonstrate historical beneficial use required to hold water rights. We produced >7 TB of ET data from Landsat 5, 7, and 8 to support this need. We conducted a retrospective impact assessment of the water rights decisions using these data to demonstrate the utility of these data.