Potential rainwater harvesting improvement using advanced remote sensing applications.

Mohamed Elhag,Jarbou A Bahrawi

doi:10.1155/2014/806959

Abstract

The amount of water on earth is the same and only the distribution and the reallocation of water forms are altered in both time and space. To improve the rainwater harvesting a better understanding of the hydrological cycle is mandatory. Clouds are major component of the hydrological cycle; therefore, clouds distribution is the keystone of better rainwater harvesting. Remote sensing technology has shown robust capabilities in resolving challenges of water resource management in arid environments. Soil moisture content and cloud average distribution are essential remote sensing applications in extracting information of geophysical, geomorphological, and meteorological interest from satellite images. Current research study aimed to map the soil moisture content using recent Landsat 8 images and to map cloud average distribution of the corresponding area using 59 MERIS satellite imageries collected from January 2006 to October 2011. Cloud average distribution map shows specific location in the study area where it is always cloudy all the year and the site corresponding soil moisture content map came in agreement with cloud distribution. The overlay of the two previously mentioned maps over the geological map of the study area shows potential locations for better rainwater harvesting.

Highlights

Water cycle or the hydrological cycle assures that the quantity of water in the earth’s environment under no circumstances changes, regardless of the state of the water as a liquid, gas, or solid state
The aim of the current study is to examine the interconnection between spatiotemporal distribution of the conducted cloud likelihood maps and clouds underneath terrain features to improve potential rainwater harvesting in the study area
Rainwater harvesting and conservation are the activity of direct collection of rainwater

Summary

Introduction

Water cycle or the hydrological cycle assures that the quantity of water in the earth’s environment under no circumstances changes, regardless of the state of the water as a liquid, gas, or solid state. Adequate water management is founded on understanding the interconnections in the hydrological cycle. Informative knowledge of the designated catchment water balance is needed [1]. Catchment area by definition is the total area of terrestrial which catches rainfall and contributes the placid water to a certain surface water or potential groundwater recharge [2]. There is no accurate estimation of groundwater recharge. Existing estimation is based on the difference between the total amounts of rainfall and actual evapotranspiration due to indeterminate statistics of similar extents. No reliable information concerning absolute values of recharge can be obtained by the surface water balance [3, 4]. Recharge quantification problems from different sources are addressed by Gee and Hillel [5], Lerner et al [6], Allison et al [7], Stephens [8], Lerner [9], and Simmers [10], among others

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