Abstract
Knowledge on actual evaporation and soil moisture conditions of crops, forests and natural vegetation is of paramount importance for initiating and evaluating water management practices. Despite the scientific progress in hydrology and soil physics, deficit and excessive soil moisture in the root zone cannot be measured or calculated in a straightforward manner due to spatial heterogeneity in environmental conditions. A remote sensing study of the surface energy balance using Landsat Thematic Mapper images has been applied to circumvent the need to solve the water balance explicitly for estimating actual evaporation and soil moisture conditions. The results for various land use categories in The Netherlands are evaluated. It is demonstrated that remote sensing techniques have progressed and that the limited awareness and services in data transfer now restraints the exploration of satellite data for operational water management.
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