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WaPOR, remote sensing for water productivity

Water accounting

Transparent and comprehensive information of water resources is needed for sustainable integrated water resources management. Water accounting is the systematic analysis of the current status and trends in water supply, demand, distribution, accessibility and use in time and space within specified domains, producing a basis for evidence-based water policy decision-making (FAO, 2017). Water accounting outputs reveals how water is used across different sectors and help shape an understanding of the benefits and existing trade-offs of the water allocations and use patterns. The integrated and cross sectoral presentation of the information in water accounting helps the users to see the bigger picture and cross linkages in water management.

Understanding the current status of water resources systems globally requires detailed information on the source of water in space and time as well as detailed information on the utilisation of those water resources. Unavailability of sufficient observed data is a big issue in most parts of the world to be able to fully assess available water resources and its utilisation. Fortunately, more and more remote sensing based products are becoming available, providing information on various components of the water cycle, such as precipitation, actual evapotranspiration and storage variations.

 

WaPOR V1 - Database methodology: Level 1 data (Continental level - 250m)
21/09/2018

This publication describes the methodology applied to produce the different data components published in WaPOR, FAO's portal to monitor Water Productivity through Open access of Remotely sensed derived data.

WaPOR V1 database methodology: level 2 (country and river basin level - 100m)
25/10/2018

This document describes the methodology applied to produce the different data components made available at Level 2 (100 m spatial resolution) in WaPOR, FAO's portal to monitor Water Productivity through Open access of Remotely sensed derived data. The data is mainly derived from freely available remote sensing satellite sensors and products.

WaPOR database methodology- version 2 release (April 2020)
15/09/2020

WaPOR Version 2 was launched in June 2019 based on extensive internal and external validation and quality assessment. This report describes the methodology used to produce the different data components of WaPOR Version 2 at the 250m (Level 1), 100m (Level 2) and 30m (Level 3) resolution, as made available through WaPOR version 2.0 release.