Project properties

Title Water Productivity Analysis
Group Water Resources Management group
Project type thesis
Credits 36
Supervisor(s) To be determined
Examiner(s)
Contact info harm.boesveld@wur.nl
Begin date 2020/01/01
End date 2022/01/31
Description Country: Ethiopia
Host institute: MetaMeta / IHE / WUR
Period: to be determined

Problem context
Improving Water Productivity (WP) is currently high on the list of objectives of various water related projects. Water Productivity in Practice (WaterPiP) is a project executed by IHE, MetaMeta and WUR and analyses WP of (mainly) Dutch funded projects in various countries. WaPOR (Water Productivity through open access of remotely sensed derived data) is a FAO database with ET, Biomass production & WP data for Africa and the Middle East, with a maximum spatial resolution of 30x30m.

Research Objective/Question
From WaPOR, WP data can be retrieved. However, the reasons behind high or low WP levels, cannot be identified from WaPOR. Therefore, several case studies have been identified to compare WaPOR outcomes, with observed data from the field. Furthermore, we would like to compare WaPOR with the outcomes of the Aquacrop model, which also uses inputs from field data. We would like to do these analyses for different crops and field situations. The outcomes will contribute to the WaterPiP project, and the improved assessment of Water Productivity. For Ethiopia this analysis could for instance take place in the Wonji Sugarcane area.

What is expected from the student (type of research)
Collect field data through interviews, measurements and observations. Use these as an input for a comparison analysis between the WaPOR and Aquacrop models.
Used skills CWR, Aquacrop, GIS
Requirements Completed WRM30806- Water Delivery