Surface energy balance system (SEBS) and satellite data for monitoring water consumption of irrigated sugarcane

Abstract

The objective of this research was to evaluate the water consumption of irrigated sugarcane areas using the Surface Energy Balance System (SEBS) driven by products derived from Meteosat Second Generation (MSG), SPOT/VEGETATION, Terra/MODIS satellite data and meteorological observations data from Minas Gerais State, Brazil. The actual evapotranspiration from SEBS model (ET-SEBS) was compared against crop evapotranspiration under standard conditions (ETc), which was obtained from weather data based on reference evapotranspiration (ET0) and the crop coefficient (Kc) values from FAO. Results showed that there was a good agreement between ET-SEBS and ETc when sugarcane was at maximum development stage under center pivot irrigation and the Kc value corresponded to 1.25. The ET-SEBS values seem to overestimate water use during sugarcane late stage in areas which the Kc value was 0.7. Increasing Kc to a value equals to 1.25 for sugarcane late stage, the differences between ETc and ET-SEBS decreased; Kc is not so high at that stage, reinforcing ET-SEBS overestimation. In conclusion, the estimation of evapotranspiration using satellite data and SEBS model approach was appropriated to monitor water usage of large sugarcane areas irrigated by center pivots in Minas Gerais State, Brazil.