Articles | Volume 24, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5251-2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5251-2020
Research article
 | 
12 Nov 2020
Research article |  | 12 Nov 2020

Mapping groundwater abstractions from irrigated agriculture: big data, inverse modeling, and a satellite–model fusion approach

Oliver Miguel López Valencia, Kasper Johansen, Bruno José Luis Aragón Solorio, Ting Li, Rasmus Houborg, Yoann Malbeteau, Samer AlMashharawi, Muhammad Umer Altaf, Essam Mohammed Fallatah, Hari Prasad Dasari, Ibrahim Hoteit, and Matthew Francis McCabe

Data sets

Landsat data U.S. Geological Survey and NASA https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/public-datasets/landsat

Model code and software

CABLE: The Community Atmosphere Biosphere Land Exchange Model source code National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) https://trac.nci.org.au/trac/cable/

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Short summary
The agricultural sector in Saudi Arabia has expanded rapidly over the last few decades, supported by non-renewable groundwater abstraction. This study describes a novel data–model fusion approach to compile national-scale groundwater abstractions and demonstrates its use over 5000 individual center-pivot fields. This method will allow both farmers and water management agencies to make informed water accounting decisions across multiple spatial and temporal scales.