NASA and the United States Geological Survey (USGS), in partnership with the Large-Scale Hydrology Research Group at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul – the only institution outside the United States participating in the project, launched OpenET-Brazil in April – an online tool designed to provide detailed data on water consumption and evapotranspiration at the field scale. This initiative is inspired by the success of OpenET, a program that assists farmers and water resource managers in the western United States.
The Brazilian version is set to begin in the coming months, with an expected duration of five years and initial results in two years. The goal is to help farmers better cope with the challenges posed by climate change; the tool will utilize a variety of resources, including open-source models and the Google Earth Engine platform, as well as satellite data provided by NASA and USGS. With this data, the tool will be able to accurately and in real-time monitor evapotranspiration and water use, providing valuable information to government agencies, farmer associations, and non-governmental organizations in Brazil.
The launch of OpenET is part of the ongoing collaboration between Brazil and the U.S. to deepen bilateral cooperation in a range of innovation and research areas.
“The user-driven approach of OpenET, open-source models, freely available data services, and data visualization and retrieval tools can be used by leading scientists in Brazil to advance water resource management in the Amazon basin and perhaps one day globally,” said Forrest Melton, project scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California.
Source: U.S. Embassy in Brazil