Applying Earth observation to detect non-authorised … · Applying Earth observation to detect non-authorised water abstractions Annexes to the Guidance document

Applying Earth observation

to detect non-authorised

water abstractions

Annexes to the Guidance

document

Document information

CLIENT European Commission, DG Environment

CONTRACT NUMBER 070307/2013/SFRA/660810/ENV.C1 - under the Framework contract ENV.D.I/FRA/2012/0014 “Framework contract to provide services to support the development and implementation of EU freshwater policies”

PROJECT NAME Applying Earth observation to detect non-authorised water abstractions

PROJECT OFFICER Thomas Petitguyot

DATE 16 September 2014

AUTHORS BIO by Deloitte (BIO)

Sarah Lockwood, Marion Sarteel, and Shailendra Mugdal

University of Castilla La Mancha (UCLM)

Anna Osann, Alfonso Calera

KEY CONTACTS Sarah Lockwood

[email protected]

Or

Shailendra Mugdal

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

European Commission - Use of Earth observation by water managers to detect and manage non-authorised

water abstractions

| 1

Contents

Annex 1 : Case studies - Applying Earth Observation to detect non-authorised water abstraction ........ 3

A. Cas des régions Languedoc-Roussillon et PACA, France ...................................................... 4

B. Case of the Crete River Basin, in Greece .............................................................................. 27

C. Case of Campania & Puglia Regions, in Italy ........................................................................ 40

D. Case of experienced river basins in Spain and Portugal ....................................................... 56

Annex 2: Status of non-authorised abstractions in the EU .................................................................... 81

Annex 3: Details of EO-based methods to monitor abstractions ........................................................... 85

Annex 4: Overview of EO tools and services ........................................................................................ 97

Annex 5: Background on water rights in the EU.................................................................................. 103

Tables

Table 1: Focus sur la région Languedoc Roussillon ............................................................................. 20

Table 2 : Focus sur la région PACA ...................................................................................................... 21

Table 3 : Procédures de déclaration ou demande d’autorisation de prélèvement - Classification ....... 22

Table 4 : Informations à fournir dans le cadre d’une déclaration ou d’une demande d’autorisation

de prélèvements .................................................................................................................................... 23

Table 5: Comparative Analysis of different procedures for the detection of irrigated areas and

abstractions: strengths and weaknesses .............................................................................................. 55

Table 6: Details of operative capacity for each element of EO Service provision line for Spain and

Portugal, example of SIRIUS................................................................................................................. 75

Table 7: Non-authorised water abstraction within Member States (selected following available

information) ............................................................................................................................................ 82

Table 8: EO sensors fulfilling water managers’ spatial resolution requirements ................................... 87

Table 9: Summary of existing Earth Observation initiatives currently used or with potential to detect

non-authorised water abstractions ........................................................................................................ 97

Table 10: Possible attributes of water rights ....................................................................................... 103

Table 11: Overview of information on water rights for irrigation for selected countries in the EU ...... 106


water abstractions

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Figures

Figure 1 : Périmètre administratif du Bassin Rhône-Méditerranée. .........................................................5

Figure 2 : Prélèvements d’eau pour l’irrigation par régions en 2010........................................................7

Figure 3 : Gestion intégrée de la ressource en eau à l’échelle du Bassin Rhône Méditerranée .......... 10

Figure 4: Procédure de déclaration de prélèvement ............................................................................. 24

Figure 5: Procédure d’autorisation de prélèvement .............................................................................. 25

Figure 6: Crete River Basin District ....................................................................................................... 28

Figure 7: Responsibilities on water rights allocation and water abstraction management ................... 30

Figure 8: Approaches for the detection of non-authorised water abstractions and available tools

within the Crete River Basin District ...................................................................................................... 33

Figure 9: National Data Bank of Hydrological and Meteorological Information ..................................... 34

Figure 10: Irrigated areas in the Consortium Sannio Alifano (in brown) ............................................... 43

Figure 11: Map of the irrigated areas in the Capitanata Plain, focus of this case study ....................... 44

Figure 12: Water abstraction management in Campania and Puglia Regions ..................................... 46


within the area covered by a Consortium .............................................................................................. 48

Figure 14: Newspaper Il Mattino”, in occasion of the final conference of the EU-project “DEMETER” 51

Figure 15: Water abstraction management within the Guadiana River Basin ...................................... 58

Figure 16: Guadiana river basin ............................................................................................................ 61

Figure 17: Evolution of water table in Upper Guadiana aquifer. ........................................................... 62


within the basin ...................................................................................................................................... 67

Figure 20: Overview of steps in using EO for detecting non-authorised abstractions .......................... 85

Figure 21: Overview of processing steps from crop water requirements (CWR) to water abstraction . 86

Figure 22: Comparison between declared irrigated surfaces per plot by farmers and classified by

remote sensing ...................................................................................................................................... 88

Figure 23: Calculation of irrigation requirements and associated information required for calculation

control .................................................................................................................................................... 89

Figure 24: Comparison among amount of irrigation water applied by farmer and irrigation water

applied estimated by the methodology kc-NDVI- ETo .......................................................................... 92

Figure 25: Comparison of estimated abstractions at aquifer scale with observed piezometric level

variations ............................................................................................................................................... 93

Figure 26: Schematic illustration of water governance ....................................................................... 105


water abstractions | 3

Annex 1 : Case studies - Applying

Earth Observation to detect non-

authorised water abstraction

A. Case of Languedoc-Roussillon and PACA regions, in France

B. Case of the Crete River Basin District, in Greece

C. Case of river basins in Italy

D. Case of river basins in Spain and Portugal



A.Cas des régions Languedoc-

Roussillon et PACA, France

1. Présentation de l’étude et des objectifs de l’atelier

1.1. Contexte et objectifs de l’étude

Le Plan d'action européen pour la sauvegarde des ressources en eau1 définit le futur agenda de

l'UE sur la politique de l'eau. La surexploitation des ressources y est identifiée comme une

pression importante qui doit être abordée par les Etats Membres pour permettre d’atteindre les

objectifs spécifiés dans la directive cadre sur l'eau (DCE). Parmi les actions proposées, ce plan

préconise l’utilisation de la télédétection pour assister les acteurs impliqués dans la gestion

quantitative de l’eau et améliorer la connaissance des prélèvements. La question se pose

aujourd’hui de l’opportunité de développer un service européen sur l’eau à travers une extension

des activités du programme européen Copernicus2 (anciennement programme européen de

surveillance de la Terre GMES)3, sur la base de tests opérationnels déjà réalisés dans certains

pays.

Dans le cadre de ce plan d’action, la DG Environnement de la Commission Européenne a

commandité une étude menée par BIO by Deloitte, en partenariat avec UCLM4. Cette étude visait

à explorer comment les technologies d’observation par satellite pourraient compléter les outils

existants pour une meilleure gestion et connaissance des prélèvements, et assister les services de

l’eau dans leurs opérations.

Dans ce contexte, une série d’ateliers ont été organisés dans des Etats Membres (en Espagne et

au Portugal, en Italie, en France et en Grèce).

1 Communication COM/2012/673

2 http://copernicus.eu/

3 GMES : Global Monitoring for Environment and Security

4 Université de Castilla La Mancha (Espagne)



1.2. Objectifs de l’atelier

Les ateliers visaient à :

mieux comprendre les besoins des gestionnaires de l’eau dans les Etats Membres

en termes de connaissance et gestion des terres irriguées et des prélèvements

d’eau pour l’irrigation (gestion structurelle et/ou gestion de crise),

informer et échanger sur les intérêts et les limites du recours à la télédétection pour

répondre à ces besoins,

explorer le potentiel de développement de la télédétection comme outil

complémentaire pour les gestionnaires et les services de la police de l’eau pour

différents modes de gouvernance, contextes agricoles, et types de prélèvements.

2. Connaissances et gestion quantitative de la ressource

2.1. Contexte de l’utilisation des ressources en eau sur en régions

Languedoc Roussillon et PACA

Les régions Languedoc-Roussillon et PACA s’étendent sur trois bassins hydrographiques :

principalement sur le bassin Rhône Méditerranée (Figure 1), et dans une moindre mesure sur le

bassin Adour-Garonne et le bassin Loire-Bretagne.

Figure 1 : Périmètre administratif du Bassin Rhône-Méditerranée5.

5 http://www.eaurmc.fr/le-bassin-rhone-mediterranee/les-caracteristiques-du-bassin-rhone-mediterranee.html



Le bassin RM est le bassin français où la demande agro-climatique est la plus marquée,

notamment dans la partie sud qui présente l’évapotranspiration potentielle annuelle la plus élevée.

Alors que le bassin bénéficie d’une ressource globalement abondante (le Rhône, la Durance, le

Verdon…), celle-ci reste inégalement répartie sur le territoire: certains secteurs comme l’Ardèche,

la Côte-d’Or, la Drôme, etc. connaissent des situations de pénurie d’eau récurrentes.6

Une véritable pression existe sur les ressources en eau de plusieurs bassins versants en régions

Languedoc-Roussillon et PACA, en particulier l’été lorsque la demande est la plus importante.

L’industrie du tourisme fortement développée dans les régions associée à une importante

demande hydrique des cultures peut conduire à des prélèvements d’eau supérieurs aux quantités

disponibles, créant des déficits conjoncturels ou même structurels. Les régions Languedoc-

Roussillon et PACA comptent parmi les régions françaises avec les volumes de prélèvements

d’eau pour l’irrigation les plus élevés (Figure 2). En 2010, la région PACA et la région Languedoc-

Roussillon comptent parmi les régions ayant prélevé le plus grand volume d’eau pour l’irrigation

(>650 millions de m3

chacune). Ces deux régions constituent de loin les régions utilisant le plus

d’eau par surface irriguées avec 6626 m3/ha et 5855 m

3/ha pour la région PACA et la région

Languedoc-Roussillon respectivement (données DREAL et Agence de l’eau).

Ces prélèvements agricoles sont essentiellement réalisés sur les eaux de surface, et dans une

moindre mesure à partir des eaux souterraines. Les volumes prélevés dépendent des besoins des

plantes donc des cultures pratiquées, mais aussi des techniques d'irrigation et du contexte

climatique. Dans le bassin Rhône-Méditerranée, la viticulture, l’arboriculture et l’horticulture

représentent une part importante de la production agricole. L’irrigation est essentiellement assurée

par système gravitaire. Celui-ci est moins efficient que de l’irrigation sous pression mais il présente

l’intérêt de rester silencieux (pas de bruit de moteur), d’éviter la consommation d'énergie fossile, et

dans quelques cas de présenter des effets indirects positifs (recharge de nappes d'eau souterraine

exploitées pour l'alimentation en eau potable).

L’impact des prélèvements d’irrigation est d’autant plus important qu’ils ont lieu pour l’essentiel

dans une période qui inclut généralement l’étiage des ressources en eau superficielles et

souterraines (entre avril et septembre). Cette pression sur les ressources en eau est susceptible

de conduire à des conflits d’usage et à la surexploitation des ressources7, ce qui nécessite la mise

en place d’une gestion de crise avec la mise en place de restrictions d’usage de l’eau.

6 http://www.eaurmc.fr/le-bassin-rhone-mediterranee/les-caracteristiques-du-bassin-rhone-mediterranee/les-grands-

enjeux-du-bassin-rhone-mediterranee.html

7 http://www.observatoire-eau-paca.org/environnement/les-differents-usages-de-l-eau-et-les-pressions-qu-ils-

engendrent-sur-la-ressource-en-paca_71.html



Figure 2 : Prélèvements d’eau pour l’irrigation par régions en 2010

Les Table 1 et Table 2 (dans la section d’Informations complémentaires en fin de document)

donnent un aperçu du contexte agricole et hydrologique dans ces régions, susceptible d’avoir des

implications sur les méthodes d’identification des prélèvements.

2.2. Gouvernance de l’eau et allocation des droits d’eau

Afin de limiter les pressions sur les ressources hydriques et le développement de conflits d’usage,

il est essentiel d’assurer la gestion quantitative de la ressource pour en assurer un usage durab le,

équitable et transparent. La gestion des prélèvements pour l’irrigation en fait partie. Celle-ci

implique un certain nombre d’acteurs, dont les Agences de l’Eau, les services de l’Etat, des

associations d’irrigants et des préleveurs individuels. Elle repose sur une gestion établie dans la

plupart des cas de manière concertée (dans la région Languedoc-Roussillon par exemple, seul le

Bassin versant de l'Agly est orphelin de démarche concertée) et qui sera révisée suivant les PGRE

(plans de gestion des ressources en eau souterraine) élaborés à partir des résultats des études

récentes sur les volumes prélevables.



Gestion intégrée de l’eau8 9 10 11.12 13 14

Dans les régions Languedoc-Roussillon et PACA, la gestion quantitative de l’eau, et donc entre

autres des prélèvements, est coordonnée à l’échelle du bassin hydrographique Rhône-

Méditerranée par le préfet de Rhône-Alpes, région où siège le Comité de Bassin Rhône

Méditerranée (cf.. Figure 3). Le Comité de Bassin Rhône-Méditerranée est responsable de

l’élaboration et de la planification du Schéma Directeur d’Aménagement et de Gestion de l’Eau

(SDAGE) qui fixe, pour l’ensemble du Bassin, des objectifs de gestion quantitative de la ressource

en eau reposant notamment sur le respect de l’équilibre prélèvement / ressources disponibles.

Tous les secteurs sont associés aux économies d’eau, mais ce cas d’étude traite essentiellement

de la question des prélèvements réalisés pour l’irrigation. La gestion administrative des

prélèvements d’eau pour l’irrigation est assurée par les DDT (Police de l’eau). L’Office Nationale de

l’Eau et des Milieux Aquatiques (ONEMA) appuie les services de l’Etat (DDT) sur le contrôle des

prélèvements.

Afin de faciliter la gestion des prélèvements d'eau pour l'irrigation, la LEMA (2006) a introduit le

regroupement d’irrigants sur des périmètres cohérents au plan hydrogéologique, via la constitution

d’organismes uniques de gestion collective (OUGC). Les OUGC sont en charge de la gestion et de

la répartition des volumes d’eau prélevés à usage agricole sur un territoire déterminé. Les

autorisations de prélèvement accordées par l’administration sont délivrées à ces OUGC, pour

l’ensemble des irrigants. La création de tels OUGC n’est pas obligatoire mais fortement

recommandée par la LEMA dans les zones déficitaires, afin de mieux répartir une ressource déjà

limitée. En 2010, deux OUGC ont été désignés sur le bassin Rhône Méditerranée :

la chambre d’agriculture des Hautes-Alpes, sur le bassin de Buech ;

la chambre d’agriculture des Bouches-du-Rhône, sur la nappe de la Crau.

Il s’agit d’un outil relativement récent dont la mise en place se fait progressivement.

Réglementation appliquée aux prélèvements d’eau15

Depuis 1992, les prélèvements sont soumis à autorisation ou déclaration auprès du préfet du ou

des département(s) concerné(s), en fonction du type de ressource, d’usage et de seuils explicités

dans le code de l’environnement (article R 214-1, article R 214-6 et suivants et R 214-32 et

suivants) (Table 3 dans la section d’Informations complémentaires en fin de document). Les

déclarations et les autorisations, pour les prélèvements en eau souterraine sont basées sur des

volumes prélevés. Dans le cas des eaux de surface, les prélèvements ne sont pas suivis en

8 www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/L-elaboration-des-schemas.html

9 www.eaurmc.fr/pedageau/la-gestion-de-leau-en-france/les-acteurs-de-leau-en-france.html

10 www.lesagencesdeleau.fr/les-agences-de-leau/les-leviers-daction-des-agences-de-leau/

11 www.languedoc-roussillon.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/les-contrats-de-milieu-r602.html

12 www.lesagencesdeleau.fr/les-agences-de-leau/la-democratie-de-leau/

13www.rhone.gouv.fr/Services-de-l-Etat/Prefecture-et-sous-prefecture/Le-prefet-coordonnateur-de-bassin/La-

fonction-de-Prefet-coordonnateur-de-bassin

14 www.eaurmc.fr/le-bassin-rhone-mediterranee/le-comite-de-bassin-rhone-mediterranee.html

15 www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/La-reglementation-appliquee-aux.html



termes de surfaces irriguées. Ils peuvent selon les cas être décrits en termes de volume ou de

débit, ou encore, de manière plus indirecte, à travers le débit réservé16

(permettant d’assurer un

débit minimal dans le cours d’eau). Cette information est particulièrement intéressante pour mieux

comprendre les atouts et limites de la télédétection par satellite pour le contrôle des prélèvements

dans le Sud de la France (cf. section 3).

Toute personne souhaitant effectuer un prélèvement d’eau doit adresser une déclaration17

ou une

demande d’autorisation18

au préfet du ou des département(s) où ils sont envisagés, selon les

modalités détaillées dans la Table 4 dans la section d’Informations complémentaires en fin de

document. Les prélèvements domestiques (ou assimilés) ne sont pas soumis à cette procédure ;

ils relèvent de la procédure appliquée aux forages domestiques et doivent être déclaré en Mairie.

Tout prélèvement inférieur ou égal à 1000 m3/an est assimilé à un prélèvement domestique. Une

fois en préfecture, sous réserve de la complétude des informations fournies, le dossier de

déclaration ou demande d’autorisation est instruit par la Police de l’eau qui contrôle la conformité

des prélèvements envisagés avec la législation en vigueur. La procédure est détaillée dans la

section d’Informations complémentaires en fin de document, Figure 4 et Figure 5. Les

prélèvements ne peuvent débuter avant l’obtention d’un avis favorable, notifié par arrêté

préfectoral. L’administration peut s’opposer à une déclaration ou refuser de délivrer une

autorisation si le prélèvement associé est estimé porter atteinte au bon état des cours d’eau ou au

niveau des nappes.

Tout ouvrage antérieur à 1992 doit en théorie faire l’objet d’une régularisation simplifiée, mais

l’expérience montre que la déclaration de l’existant reste très insuffisante en comparaison du

nombre attendu d’ouvrages, notamment à cause des coûts associés à cette régularisation. La

conditionnalité des aides introduite par la PAC et plus récemment la LEMA ont permis d’accélérer

ce processus, bien que la connaissance des points de prélèvements reste incomplète à ce jour.

Les déclarations et demandes d’autorisation des prélèvements peuvent se faire de manière

collective, à travers des associations d’irrigants (ASA) (75% des cas), ou individuelle. Dans le

premier cas, est considérée comme « préleveur » l’association. C’est elle qui devra rendre compte

des prélèvements effectués lors d’un contrôle par les services déconcentrés de l’Etat ou les

Agences de l’Eau (auxquelles ils déclarent des redevances), et non les utilisateurs individuels

membres de l’association. Les surfaces irrigables sont définies dans le statut de ces associations.

16 Il est cependant important de noter qu’un seuil de prélèvement en rivière peut respecter le débit réservé mais

dépasser les volumes autorisés, d'autant plus si il est à l'amont d'autres prélèvements tributaires de sa gestion et consommation.

17www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCode.do?idSectionTA=LEGISCTA000006188720&cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006074220&

dateTexte=20090831

18www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCode.do?idSectionTA=LEGISCTA000006189059&cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006074220&

dateTexte=20090831

European Commission - Use of Earth observation by water managers to detect and manage non-authorised water abstractions | 10

SDAGE(Schéma Directeur d’Aménagement et de

Gestion de l’Eau)

• Document fixant les objectifs de gestion

durable des ressources en eau,

• Associé à des Programmes De Mesures

(PDM) déterminant les actions concrètes

pour atteindre ces objectifs

Comité de Bassin

Rhône-Méditerranée

« Parlement de l’eau » ou instance délibérative

• 66 élus de collectivités (conseillers

régionaux, généraux et municipaux)

• 66 représentants des « usagers » de l’eau

• 33 représentants de l’Etat

• Définition des grandes orientations de la

politique de l’eau

Agence de l’Eau

Rhône-Méditerranée et Corse

• Etablissement public placé sous la tutelle du MEDDE et doté de

l’autonomie financière

• Mission d’incitation à une utilisation rationnelle de l’eau via le

levier d’action financier des redevances et subventions

• Mission de production et gestion des données sur l’eau pour la

connaissance, la gestion et l’évaluation

Préfet de Rhône-Alpes

coordonnateur de

bassin

• Autorité administrative

compétente pour le

bassin

Délégation interrégionale Méditerranée• Appui technique

• Encadrement réglementaire

Services départementaux de l’ONEMA

ONEMA(Office Nationale de l’Eau

et de Milieux Aquatiques)

• Etablissement public national

• Surveillance des milieux aquatiques

• Contrôle des usages de l’eau

• Connaissance et information

Elaboration

Planification

Financement

Coordination du suivi de

la mise en œuvre

Adaptation des objectifs

du SDAGE aux

contextes locaux SAGE(Schéma d’Aménagement et

de Gestion de l’Eau)

Commission Locale de l’Eau

Pilotage

Contrats de milieu(de rivière, de lac, de lagune ou

de nappe)

Comité de Rivière

Elaboration

Accord technique et

financier de mise en

œuvre du SDAGE

Avis sur le

programmeEn partenariat :

définition et mise en

œuvre de la stratégie

nationale pour l’eau et

les milieux aquatiques

Délégation et appui

• Commission relative au Milieu

Naturel Aquatique de bassin

• Conseil Scientifique

• Bureau

Instances de réflexion, de

travail et de concertation :

• 5 Commissions Géographiques

• 4 Commissions Territoriales

Agrément

Examen du périmètre

et des projets

• Comité d’agrément

Coordination du

suivi de la mise

en œuvre

DREAL(Direction Régionale de l’Environnement,

de l’Aménagement et du Logement)

• DREAL Rhône-Alpes

• DREAL Languedoc Roussillon

• DREAL PACA, …

DDT(Direction Départementale

des Territoires)

= Police de l’Eau

Contrôle des PrélèvementsGendarmerie

Police nationale

Maire

(Fonction judiciaire)

Constat des

infractionsContrôle, sur le terrain, du respect de la réglementation,

et constat des infractions

Gestion administrative de la base de données nationale

sur la déclaration et les autorisations de prélèvement

Contrôle du respect

de la réglementation

Usagers de l’eau

dont les agriculteurs irrigants

Cohérence des pratiques(en particulier des prélèvements pour

l’irrigation)

Avis favorable pour prélèvement(suite à déclaration ou demande de

prélèvement)

Figure 3 : Gestion intégrée de la ressource en eau à l’échelle du Bassin Rhône Méditerranée



En vertu des dispositions prévues par le code de l’Environnement (article L.211-3 II-1°), les préfets

peuvent prendre des mesures exceptionnelles pour faire face à une potentielle situation de

sécheresse. La nécessité de mettre en place de mesures de restriction des prélèvements d’eau en

situation de sécheresse est signalée par des « Comités sécheresse » qui se réunissent au niveau

de chaque département. La planification de ces mesures et la décision de mise en œuvre sont

assurées par le préfet du ou des département(s) concerné(s), à travers un arrêté préfectoral. Un

arrêté départemental formalise la limitation des usages de l’eau. Les situations de déficit hydrique

(peu de précipitations, moindre débit des cours d’eau) sont fréquentes dans les départements du

bassin Rhône Méditerranée en saison estivale. En 2012 par exemple, l’ensemble du département

Bouches-du-Rhône a été placé en situation de « vigilance » sur avis du comité départemental dès

le mois d’avril19

. Le Comité sécheresse du Vaucluse, en collaboration étroite avec l’association

des Irrigants du Vaucluse et la Chambre d’Agriculture, joue également un rôle important en

termes de gestion des pénuries d’eau sur le Bassin de la Durance20

.

2.3. Connaissance des volumes prélevables et des prélèvements

pour l’irrigation

Dans le cadre du SDAGE 2010-2015 du Bassin Rhone-Mediterrannée, une campagne d’études

d’évaluation des volumes prélevables globaux (EVPG), c’est-à-dire tous usages confondus, a été

lancée. Ces évaluations, qui seront terminées pour la plupart en 2014, vont permettre de préciser

les déséquilibres quantitatifs. A l'issue des études volumes prélevables, les acteurs élaboreront de

manière concertée un plan de gestion des ressources en eau qui propose une répartition des

volumes prélevables au sein du bassin hydrographique ou de la masse d'eau souterraine. C'est sur

la base de cette répartition que seront revues les autorisations de prélèvements pour le prochain

SDAGE. Les bassins hydrographiques et masses d’eau souterraine dont les EVPG confirment le

déficit quantitatif sont classés en Zone de Répartition des Eaux (ZRE)21

. Les ZRE identifient des

zones présentant une insuffisance structurelle, c’est-à-dire autre qu’exceptionnelle, des ressources

par rapport aux besoins et font l’objet d’une gestion plus fine des prélèvements ainsi que d’efforts

accentués d’économie d’eau. Actuellement, plusieurs bassins et masses d’eau souterraine de la

région Languedoc-Roussillon sont identifiés en ZRE (aquifère plioquaternaire du Roussillon, Tech

à l’aval d‘Amélie-les-Bains, Aude Médiane, Astien, amont Vidurle, amont Gardons, amont Cèze).

Trois ZRE ont été identifiés en 2010 en région PACA22

, sur le bassin versant du Largue et le

bassin du Lauzon (Alpes de Provences), et le bassin du Gapeau (dans le Var).

La ressource en eau est suivie par l’Etat via un réseau de mesures hydrométriques des eaux de

surfaces et un réseau de mesures piézométriques. Elle fait l’objet de bulletins périodiques de la

situation hydrologique et des eaux souterraines23

. Ces réseaux peuvent être complétés par des

19 www.paca.pref.gouv.fr/Actualites/Secheresse-2012-vigilance-de-rigueur-pour-l-ensemble-du-departement-des-

Bouches-du-Rhone

20 www.agriculture84.fr/la-chambre-d-agriculture/ses-missions/gestion-de-la-ressource-en-eau/gestion-concertee-de-

l-eau.html

21 www.rhone-mediterranee.eaufrance.fr/docs/ZRE/consultation2013/consultZRE_synthese-avis_20130626_BD.pdf

22 www.rhone-mediterranee.eaufrance.fr/usages-et-pressions/gestion-quanti/classement_zre.php

23 www.languedoc-roussillon.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/ressources-en-eaux-r574.html



réseaux de mesures locaux déployés par les Conseils généraux/syndicats de bassin versant ou de

nappe.

De plus, la mise en œuvre d’instruments de mesure des prélèvements chez les utilisateurs

(associations d’irrigants ou individuels) est obligatoire dans le cadre de la DCE. Elle reste

cependant insuffisamment développée à ce jour dans les deux régions. Cela peut être en partie

expliqué par la prédominance des systèmes d’irrigation gravitaire pour lesquels l’installation d’une

métrologie efficace est relativement complexe. Au niveau régional, l'ONEMA intervient

techniquement pour appuyer à la mise en place de dispositifs permettant à la fois de respecter le

débit réservé et le débit de prélèvement autorisé. La transition vers des systèmes sous pression

est délicate, à cause des coûts associés à cette modernisation ainsi qu’aux effets possibles sur le

fonctionnement hydrologique de certains bassins (nappes alimentées principalement par les

canaux d’irrigation, comme en région PACA).

Ces prélèvements peuvent être approchés indirectement via l’évolution du niveau piézométrique

de la nappe et les niveaux d’étiage, mais l’information reste imparfaite et la responsabilité

(individuelle et non-individuelle) des irrigants est difficile à engager. En dehors d’une déclaration «

exhaustive » des irrigants, la meilleure connaissance des prélèvements agricoles nécessiterait

aujourd’hui des enquêtes de terrain à grande échelle dont le coût peut être important.

A ce jour, la connaissance des prélèvements repose ainsi essentiellement sur du déclaratif (à

travers les déclarations/autorisations de prélèvements, les volumes ou surfaces irriguées déclarés

aux Agences de l’Eau pour les redevances24

, et les surfaces en cultures irriguées identifiées à

travers le recensement général agricole) et sur les résultats nécessairement partiels ou

ponctuels d’enquêtes de terrain et des campagnes d’inspections. Un projet national de

banque nationale de prélèvements est en cours de développement au sein du ministère de

l'écologie (prévu pour 2015) et devrait permettre de consolider ces différentes bases de données.

Malgré leur intérêt pour la collecte d’information, ces différentes approches ont toutefois leurs

limites, et la connaissance des préleveurs, des surfaces irriguées et des volumes prélevés reste

insuffisante.

24 Les pétitionnaires ont une obligation de comptage de leurs prélèvements qui sont à déclarer auprès des agences de

l'eau. En l’absence de compteurs, cas majoritaire dans ces régions où l’irrigation gravitaire reste dominante, les volumes peuvent être calculés sur la base des surfaces et types de cultures irriguées ou des forfaits sont appliqués. Ces données permettent de connaître les volumes prélevés par type d’usage (irrigation gravitaire par ruissellement, irrigation par aspersion et irrigation par goutte à goutte) et par type de ressource (eau superficielle ou eau souterraine) (Cf. Encart ci-dessous).



Redevance Prélèvement d’eau

Les prélèvements d’eau contribuent à la diminution du débit des cours d’eau et du niveau des

nappes. L’agence de l’eau dispose d’un instrument financier pour limiter les prélèvements d’eau et

ainsi les éventuelles pressions sur les ressources hydriques. Il s’agit des redevances pour

prélèvements sur la ressource en eau, dont le dispositif est fixé par la LEMA. Ces redevances

sont versées à l’agence de l’eau par toute personne prélevant sur la ressource. Le montant des

redevances est calculé à partir du volume prélevé au cours de l’année écoulée (Article L231-10-9

III du code de l’environnement)25

:

Redevance (€) = assiette (m3) x tarifs (€/m

3)

Le volume prélevé est renseigné par l’usager d’eau, i.e. par les agriculteurs dans le cas de

prélèvements d’eau d’irrigation, sur la base de mesures au compteur ou d’estimation en cas de

panne ou de changement de dispositif. Une vingtaine d’organismes habilités par l’agence de l’eau

Rhône-Méditerranée et Corse sont chargés de réaliser des contrôles du dispositif de mesure des

volumes prélevés26

. En cas d’impossibilité de mesure, l’irrigant doit fournir les informations

suivantes permettant d’estimer les prélèvements et ainsi le montant des redevances 27

:

Type d’irrigation : aspersion, gravitaire, autre procédé (micro irrigation, localisée)

Hectares de culture irriguée pendant l’année

Ces déclarations de prélèvements peuvent se faire en ligne sur le site internet de l’agence de

l’eau Rhône-Méditerranée. Un formulaire type se trouve dans la section d’Informations

complémentaires en fin de document.

L’ensemble des données de prélèvements et la quantité d’eau souterraines sont disponibles

publiquement28

.

25 www.eaurmc.fr/teleservices/formulaires-administratifs/formulaires-de-declaration-redevance-prelevement-deau-

et-production-electrique.html?eID=dam_frontend_push&docID=3080

26 liste de ces organismes disponible à : www.eaurmc.fr/fileadmin/aides-et-

redevances/documents/Redevances/Prelevement/Zonage_2013_-_2018/liste-organismes-habilites-prelevement-eau.pdf

27 www.eaurmc.fr/teleservices/formulaires-administratifs/formulaires-de-declaration-redevance-prelevement-deau-

et-production-electrique.html?eID=dam_frontend_push&docID=1056

28 sierm.eaurmc.fr/telechargement/telechargement.php



2.4. Difficultés rencontrées et besoins des gestionnaires de l’eau

pour une meilleure connaissance des prélèvements

Suite aux discussions dans le cadre de l’atelier, les gestionnaires des régions PACA et Languedoc-

Roussillon estiment avoir une connaissance régionale relativement précise des prélèvements

grâce à la combinaison des différentes bases de données ainsi qu’aux études volumes

prélevables. L’enjeu est de continuer à améliorer cette connaissance afin d’affiner les volumes

prélevés et la connaissance des préleveurs, à la fois pour des raisons environnementales de

gestion de la ressource et de justice fiscale. La gestion quantitative de l’eau pourrait être améliorée

en levant les incertitudes restantes relatives aux points de prélèvements, aux surfaces irriguées et

aux volumes prélevés, qui limitent les possibilités d’action ciblée des gestionnaires en cas de

déficit conjoncturel et/ou structurel de la ressource en eau. Les difficultés et actions correctives

associées identifiées par les participants incluent :

absence de métrologie efficace sur les prélèvements, relative à la prédominance des

systèmes d’irrigation gravitaire. Celle-ci est cependant en phase d’amélioration avec

des préconisations précises issues de l’arrêté prélèvement du 19 décembre 2011 ;

incertitudes liés au déclaratif, diminuées dans une certaine mesure par des contrôles

aléatoires et tournants :

régularisation insuffisante des ouvrages existants de la part des

usagers (souvent attribuée aux coûts associés) ;

absence de déclaration de nouveaux forages ;

fiabilité relative des volumes déclarés pour les redevances, en

l’absence d’instrument de mesure performants (ex. forfaits à l’hectare) ;

exemption de déclaration pour les volumes prélevés en eau souterraine

de moins de 10 000 m3/an, ainsi qu’en eau superficielle si les volumes

prélevés sont inférieurs à 2% du QMNA5 naturel (débit mensuel

quinquennal sec, i.e. débit minimum se produisant en moyenne une fois

tous les cinq ans). En revanche, en Zone de répartition des Eaux, tous

les prélèvements non domestiques sont déclarés ou autorisés ;

pompages mobiles (relativement mineurs cependant comparés aux volumes estimés

des prélèvements collectifs) ;

usage généralisé de sources multiples pour l’irrigation (un ou plusieurs canaux

collectifs et forages individuels) d’une même parcelle (lot de parcelles), couplée à

des ressources souterraines et superficielles dont le fonctionnement hydrologique

peut être interdépendant ;

comptages effectués au lieu de distribution et non au lieu de prélèvement ne

permettent pas de connaitre les usages individuels

accès limité aux propriétés pour les opérations de contrôle ;

insuffisance des ressources disponibles (personnel, temps, coûts) pour ces

opérations de contrôles : seul un nombre limité de préleveurs peut être inspecté (en

pratique, 3 inspections maximum par jour) ;

difficulté supplémentaire en gestion de crise étant données les conditions requises

en termes de réactivité.



Les besoins clés des gestionnaires et de la police de l’eau identifiés lors de l’atelier incluent :

l’identification des sources et points de prélèvements (à travers les ouvrages fixes

et/ou mobiles), en particulier chez les utilisateurs privés, afin d’optimiser les

campagnes de régularisation ;

une meilleure connaissance des surfaces irriguées et une meilleure connaissance

des prélèvements bruts et nets afin de mieux préparer les plans de gestions et

ensuite de vérifier leur mise en œuvre et efficacité pour consolider les diagnostics

issus des études volumes prélevables et vérifier la réalisation des actions

d'économies identifiées dans les PGRE (Plans de gestion des ressources en eau

souterraine) ;

des outils pour améliorer le ciblage des inspections et notamment garantir le respect

des mesures de restriction en période de crise.

3. L’observation de la Terre pour répondre aux besoins de la gestion de

l’eau pour l’irrigation en agriculture

3.1. Les outils apportés par la télédétection par satellite pour la

gestion quantitative de l’eau

La télédétection par satellite, associée à des données de terrain, peut fournir un panel de produits

et services permettant d’assister les gestionnaires dans la gestion quantitative des prélèvements

pour l’irrigation, ce à différentes échelles spatiales. La télédétection permet notamment:

d’identifier de manière fine les zones irriguées ;

d’estimer indirectement les volumes prélevés à travers la demande en irrigation.

Ces outils permettent de mieux connaitre la quantité d’eau apportée aux parcelles, provenant à la

fois de sources souterraines et de surface.

La capacité à cartographier les zones irriguées dépend de la fréquence des images à haute

résolution disponibles via la télédétection et de leur adéquation avec les données de terrain. La

capacité à cartographier la demande en eau d’irrigation dépend de l’estimation de l’équilibre

hydrique des sols sur la base des données satellites et requiert plusieurs exercices de

modélisation. De manière générale, la précision obtenue dans le premier cas est de plus de 90%.

Les incertitudes relatives au second cas s’élèvent à 10 à 20%. Plus la période de suivi est longue,

plus la précision sera élevée.

Les séries chronologiques d’images à haute résolution (5-30 m) permettent de visualiser des

parcelles agricoles de tailles supérieures à 0,1-1 ha (et de couvrir ainsi la grande majorité des

zones irriguées). La connaissance de l’occupation des sols est une entrée clé pour être à même de

cartographier les zones irriguées et la demande en irrigation. Celle-ci peut être dérivée de la

télédétection. La modélisation du développement des cultures, réalisée sur la base de séries

chronologiques de l’indice de végétation (NDVI) dérivées de l’imagerie multi-spectrale, est

reconnue comme une procédure d’identification fiable de l’occupation du sol.

Les besoins des cultures en eau d’irrigation sont alors estimés sur la base de données

d’évapotranspiration et de bilan hydrique des sols. Ce ne sont pas des mesures directes de l’eau

apportée mais elles y sont directement liées en fonction de l’efficacité du système d’irrigation. Ces

besoins en eau d’irrigation donnent des mesures valables de la quantité d’eau apportée à la

parcelle. Selon les cultures et le stress hydrique appliqué lors d’une diminution ou d’un arrêt de

l’irrigation (en période de restriction par exemple), le ralentissement ou la diminution de la courbe



des NDVI observés peut être plus ou moins importante et étalée dans le temps. Cette réponse

dépend également de l’importance du stockage de l’eau dans les sols. Concrètement, cela signifie

qu’il n’est pas toujours évident de détecter une réponse hydrique claire, dans un court laps de

temps, suite à la mise en œuvre de restrictions.

3.2. Applications

A elles seules, les mesures volumétriques sur le terrain peuvent constituer un outil puissant pour la

gestion quantitative de l’eau à condition qu’elles soient correctement réalisées. En réalité, la

plupart des expériences d’utilisation des méthodes volumétriques sans coopération avec les

utilisateurs seraient des échecs en Europe, généralement pour les même raisons que celles citées

dans la section 2.

L’expérience montre que, pour des parcelles supérieures à 1 ha (et même 0,1 ha en fonction du

degré de précision des images satellites disponibles), les approches de télédétection complètent

efficacement les mesures volumétriques réalisées sur le terrain.

Parmi les besoins identifiées par les acteurs lors de l’atelier, les applications suivantes ont été

proposées :

suivi ex-post des prélèvements sur les bassins en déficit permettant d’évaluer

l’efficacité du plan de gestion et des mesures éventuelles de restriction, à l’échelle

du mois, de l’année, ou sur un pas de temps pluri-annuel ;

ciblage des inspections en anticipé, en identifiant des anomalies en années N et en

orientant les contrôles sur ces parcelles en année N+1, afin de régulariser la

situation des points de prélèvements non identifiés et cibler les inspections sur les

prélèvements les plus importants. La télédétection permet de détecter de manière

efficace des anomalies relatives aux prélèvements. Elle permet de faciliter et

d’optimiser le processus d’inspection par des actions ciblées, alors que les

inspections sur le terrain ne peuvent pas être appliquées sur de grandes zones, et

reposent généralement à ce jour sur une sélection de parcelles à inspecter, définie

sur la base de critères et priorités stratégiques propres à chacune des DDT.

Les produits de télédétection offrent un degré similaire de précision et, après investissement initial,

sont moins coûteux sur de nombreux plans que des visites non ciblées. La combinaison des deux

systèmes, télédétection et données volumétriques, est perçue comme une alternative réaliste et

envisageable. Les acteurs présents lors de l’atelier ont cependant soulevé les limites de la

télédétection liées au décalage observé entre le besoin des plantes, les consommations à la

parcelle et le prélèvement effectif dans le milieu ainsi qu’à l’absence de données de référence et

adaptabilité limitée de l’outil aux cultures méditerranéenne telles que la vigne et l’olivier,

prédominants sur certains bassins.

La télédétection a montré son intérêt notamment pour la gestion structurelle des ressources en

eau. La possibilité d’utiliser cet outil pour la gestion de crise reste plus limitée, car elle dépend du

type de culture et de la sévérité des mesures de restriction29

. Elle est particulièrement pertinente

29 Il existe trois seuils de mesures de limitation des prélèvements d’eau à des fins agricoles :

1)Seuil d’alerte franchi dans le secteur

a.Tous les prélèvements dans les eaux superficielles et les eaux souterraines :



pour surveiller les mesures de restriction totales lorsque le seuil de crise est franchi, et, dans une

moindre mesure pour vérifier la réduction des volumes prélevés à l’échelle de la semaine ou de la

décade pour les seuils d’alerte 1 et 2. L’efficacité de la mise en œuvre de restrictions peut

cependant être analysée en fin de saison afin d’en tirer les conclusions pour la campagne à venir.

3.3. Conditions de mise en œuvre et de suivi opérationnel

Un système opérationnel basé sur la télédétection au service de l’irrigation nécessite un certain

nombre de données, issues de la télédétection et des bases de données et dispositifs de terrain :

fréquence importante de série d’images à haute résolution (SPOT5, RapidEye,

Landsat8, DeIMOS et idéalement, SENTINEL2) pour la saison de croissance de la

culture en place :

afin de détecter les zones irriguées, des images sans nuages (<10% de

nébulosité) doivent être obtenues toutes les 2-4 semaines à partir de 2

semaines avant le début de la saison de croissance jusqu'à la fin de la

saison ;

afin d’estimer les volumes prélevés, des images doivent être obtenues

toutes les 1 à 2 semaines jusqu’à la fin de la saison.

réseau de stations agro-météorologiques ;

limites cadastrales des parcelles soumises à des droits d’accès à l’eau ;

informations auxiliaires au sujet de la phénologie et du développement des cultures ;

cartes d’occupation des sols et de couvertures végétales.

Limitation des prélèvements 2 jours / semaine

Ou réduction de 15 à 30 % des volumes dont le prélèvement est autorisé par semaine ou par décade.

b.Cas particulier des prélèvements dans les cours d’eau, leurs nappes d’accompagnement ou dans les autres eaux souterraines avec une incidence rapide sur le débit des cours d’eau :

Même réduction des prélèvements avec en plus l’organisation de « tours d’eau »

2)Seuil d'alerte renforcée franchi dans le secteur

a.Tous les prélèvements dans les eaux superficielles 1 et les eaux souterraines :

Limitation des prélèvements 3,5 jours / semaine

Ou réduction de 50 % des volumes dont le prélèvement est autorisé par semaine ou par décade.

b.Cas particulier des prélèvements dans les cours d’eau, leurs nappes d’accompagnement ou dans les autres eaux souterraines avec une incidence rapide sur le débit des cours d’eau :

Même réduction des prélèvements avec en plus l’organisation de « tours d’eau »

Seuil de crise franchi dans le secteur

Tous les prélèvements dans les eaux superficielles et les eaux souterraines : Suspension totale des prélèvements



Plus spécifiquement, il est nécessaire d’obtenir toutes les semaines, idéalement chaque semaine,

des images satellites à haute résolution (5-30m), ainsi que les données listées ci-dessous :

les cartes vectorielles des exploitations agricoles et des unités de gestion de l’eau

(ex : cadastre rural, ortho-photo ou cartes publiques) pour vérifier le respect des

droits d’accès à l’eau et des attributions ;

les données quotidiennes des stations agro-météorologiques et de pluviométrie pour

les calculs de consommation d’eau par les cultures ;

les données de débitmétrie à certains endroits pour calibrer les données de

consommation d’eau par les cultures de manière continue.

Idéalement, ces données doivent être intégrées à un système d’information géographique dans le

but de fournir un outil à l’attention des parties prenantes, pour leur collaboration et la transparence

de la gestion.

3.4. Synthèse des avantages et inconvénients de l’utilisation de la

télédétection

Des études pilotes ont déjà été menées dans différentes zones en France sur l’utilisation de la

télédétection comme aide à la décision pour les usagers ou les services de l’Etat, certaines dans le

domaine de l’eau. La base de ces études est disponible au sein de plusieurs universités et

institutions de recherche (ex : CESBIO, Maison de la Télédétection, etc.). L’INRA d’Avignon a

aussi été la source d’un ensemble de méthodologies basées sur des modèles pour estimer

l’évapotranspiration à partir de la télédétection en alimentant les données spatiales disponibles

avec des modèles de croissance des végétaux. Plusieurs expériences européennes ont par

ailleurs démontré les atouts opérationnels et la capacité de fonctionnement à long terme de la

télédétection30

.

La question reste de savoir comment faire coïncider les besoins identifiés des gestionnaires pour

une meilleure connaissance et gestion des prélèvements avec les possibilités offertes par la

télédétection.

Comme dans d’autres régions, les avantages clés du suivi des prélèvements d’eau par la

télédétection attendus incluent :

grande couverture spatiale et résolution spatiale et temporelle adaptée ;

bonne précision ;

augmentation nette de l’efficacité de la surveillance et d l’inspection ;

outil d’évaluation objectif et reconnu comme tel auprès des utilisateurs de la

ressource ;

développement de jeux de données d’occupation des sols supplémentaires et mis à

jour;

nette réduction des coûts de suivi et des besoins en main d’œuvre après

investissement initial.

30 Ex. Projet FP7 Sirius



Certaines spécificités du Sud de la France sont cependant susceptibles de limiter l’application de la

télédétection :

d’un point de vue administratif, la gestion des prélèvements en eau de surface

souvent effectuée à travers des débits maximums et non une quantité à l’hectare ne

permet pas toujours de comparer directement les volumes prélevés estimés par la

télédétection avec l’eau effectivement apportée à la parcelle ;

l’irrigation étant essentiellement apportée sous forme gravitaire, les prélèvements

bruts sont bien plus élevés que les prélèvements dits « nets » et que les besoins des

cultures estimés à travers la télédétection ;

dans la région, il y a une présence importante de vignes, oliviers et autres cultures

pérennes, pour lesquelles le contraste observé entre cultures irriguées (en

maintenant des conditions de stress) et non irriguées est relativement faible via la

télédétection. Cela réduit la fiabilité des estimations relatives aux prélèvements

associés, bien qu’un traitement pluri-annuel des résultats permette d’augmenter la

précision des estimations. Cela est également vrai pour de l’irrigation d’appoint.

Cependant, les volumes prélevés dans ce cadre restent relativement faibles au

regard des cultures irriguées de manière continue en été ;

la couverture nuageuse dans la région est un frein majeur à l’acquisition de données

satellites suffisamment fréquentes, mais de nouvelles possibilités seront offertes par

le lancement de Sentinel2 dans un future proche, qui augmentera la fréquence de

l’ensemble des images obtenues ;

en cas de gestion de crise, il peut être difficile d’assurer le respect des mesures de

restrictions. Dans l’ensemble, les acteurs ne sont pas convaincus de la réactivité

offerte par la télédétection pour témoigner d’infractions, notamment à cause de la

variabilité de la réponse des NDVI.

3.5. Opportunités de déploiement

L’utilisation de la télédétection pour une meilleure gestion quantitative de l’eau n’est pas encore

développée dans le sud de la France. En revanche, un certain nombre d’infrastructures sont en

cours de développement, qui assureront un environnement favorable pour le déploiement de la

télédétection. C’est le cas notamment du développement attendu de la base de données nationale

sur les prélèvements, qui compilera l’ensemble des informations sur les droits d’eau et les

déclarations réalisées pour le paiement des redevances. La structure de la base de données, le

type de contenu et le type d’affichage restent encore à préciser, mais cette base est une

opportunité remarquable pour le croisement des informations administratives et légales avec les

données obtenues par télédétection.

De la même manière, le projet GeoSud31

vise à mutualiser l’utilisation des satellites, avec une

ambition nationale, afin de garantir l’accès à des données multi-usages. Il est soutenu par des

structures locales apportant des plateformes d’échanges et de valorisation thématique des

données, comme SIG-LR32

(par exemple dans le cas de la gestion des forêts).

31 www.teledetection.fr/projet-geosud.html

32 www.siglr.org/



Un environnement favorable au déploiement de la télédétection pour une meilleure gestion

quantitative de l’eau est ainsi en cours de création, avec un niveau de flexibilité permettant à ce

jour de construire les infrastructures pertinentes pour répondre aux besoins identifiés des

gestionnaires et de la police de l’eau.

4. Informations complémentaires

Table 1: Focus sur la région Languedoc Roussillon

Paramètre Donnée Source

Surface de la région 27 376 km² Eau France (2005)

Climat Influences méditerranéennes, océaniques et

continentales

Eau France (2005)

Poids de l’agriculture

dans l’économie

6% de la population active de la région

travaillent dans le secteur agricole

L’agriculture est un élément important de

l’économie régionale avec 56 000 emplois

environ en 2004, notamment dans la viticulture

(44% du total), la production de fruits et

légumes (2ème rang national 26% du total) et

les activités ostréicoles et conchylicoles.

Ifremer (2004)

Plan Climat Région LR

(2009)

Terres agricoles

(SAU)

1 080 000 ha soit 39% de la région en 2000

Territoire relativement boisé (34% de la

superficie de la région)

Eau France (2005)

Terres agricoles

irriguées (ha et % de

la SAU totale)

61 656 ha en 2010

Soit 25% de la surface agricole utile

Agence de l’eau (2010)

Types d’irrigation Gravitaire

Aspersion

Micro-irrigation

Cultures Production végétale majoritaire (en % de la

SAU de la région, en 2000)

-28% vigne

-14% céréales et oléagineux

-2,4% fruits

Ovins-caprins

Eau France (2005)

Prélèvements d’eau

pour l’irrigation

En 2010, 316,1 millions de m3 ont été prélevés

pour l’irrigation.

AGRESTE (2008)

Agence de l’eau (2010)



Table 2 : Focus sur la région PACA


Surface de la

région

31 400 km²

6% du territoire français

Eau France (2005)

Climat Méditerranéen OFME (2006)

Poids de

l’agriculture

dans

l’économie

2% de la population active de la région travaillent dans le

secteur agricole

Ifremer (2004)

Terres

agricoles

(SAU)

SAU de 700 000 ha (soit environ 20% du territoire régional.

Territoire fortement boisé (environ 40% de la superficie de la

région)

DREAL PACA et

Agence Eau RM-C

(2010)

Eau France (2005) et

OFME (2006)

Terres

agricoles

irriguées (ha

et % de la

SAU totale)

En 2000, parmi les 24% de SAU irrigable en PACA, 79%

étaient effectivement irrigués.

En 2010, 100 387 ha de SAU irriguées, soit 33% de la

surface irriguée totale du bassin

DREAL PACA et

Agence Eau RM-C

(2010)

Agence de l’eau

(2010)

Type

d’irrigation

52 % en gravitaire

37% en aspersion

10% en micro-irrigation

DREAL PACA et

Agence Eau RM-C

(2010)

Cultures Production végétale majoritaire (en % de la SAU de la

région)

-Plus de 50% fourrages

-15% céréales

-15% vignes

-5% fruits

-Fleurs, plantes aromatique, maraichages

Ovins

DREAL PACA et

Agence Eau RM-C

(2010)

Eau France (2005)

Prélèvements

d’eau pour

l’irrigation

3,4 milliards de m3 prélevés dont près de 70% pour

l’irrigation.

La ressource Durance – Verdon représente 2/3 du volume

utilisé pour l’irrigation en PACA. 60% de cette ressource

Durance-Verdon affectée à l’irrigation est exportée hors du

bassin de la Durance.

DIREN PACA (2009)

DREAL PACA et

Agence Eau RM-C

(2010)




Principales cultures irriguées (chacune représentant environ

25% de la surface irriguée totale de PACA) :

-Prairies

-Céréales (dont riz)

-Vergers

Besoin estimé pour l’irrigation : 423 millions de m3/an, dont

35% (150 millions de m3) sont mobilisés en juillet

DREAL PACA et

Agence Eau RM-C

(2010)

Table 3 : Procédures de déclaration ou demande d’autorisation de prélèvement -

Classification

Déclaration Autorisation

Ouvrages exécutés en vue de prélèvements,

recherche ou surveillance d’une nappe

phréatique

Prélèvements issus des aquifères

≥ 10 000 et ≤ 200 000 m3/an ≥ 200 000 m

3/an

Prélèvements et installations des cours d’eau (y compris nappe d’accompagnement, plan d’eau

ou canal alimenté par ce cours d’eau ou cette nappe)

Capacité totale maximale comprise entre 400 et

1 000 m3 / heure ou entre 2 et 5 % du débit du

cours d’eau ou, à défaut, du débit global

d’alimentation du canal ou du plan d’eau

Capacité totale maximale supérieure ou égale à

1 000 m3 / heure ou à 5 % du débit du cours

d’eau ou, à défaut, du débit global

d’alimentation du canal ou du plan d’eau

Prélèvements et installations des cours d’eau (y

compris nappe d’accompagnement, plan d’eau

ou canal alimenté par ce cours d’eau ou cette

nappe) lorsque le débit du cours d’eau en

période d’étiage résulte, pour plus de moitié,

d’une réalimentation artificielle

Ouvrages et installations en Zones de Répartition des Eaux (Z.R.E.)33

Capacité de prélèvement < 8m3/h Capacité de prélèvement ≥ 8m

3/h

33 Une « zone de répartition des eaux » est caractérisée par une insuffisance quantitative chronique des ressources en

eau par rapport aux besoins.



Table 4 : Informations à fournir dans le cadre d’une déclaration ou d’une demande

d’autorisation de prélèvements

Déclaration Demande d’autorisation

Nombre

d’exemplaires

3 7

Informations

générales

Nom et adresse du demandeur

Emplacement sur lequel l'installation, l'ouvrage, les travaux ou

l'activité doivent être réalisés

Nature, consistance, volume et objet de l'ouvrage, de l'installation,

des travaux ou de l'activité envisagés, ainsi que rubriques de la

nomenclature dans lesquelles ils doivent être rangés

Document Indiquant les incidences du projet sur la ressource en eau, le milieu

aquatique, l'écoulement, le niveau et la qualité des eaux, y compris

de ruissellement, en fonction des procédés mis en œuvre, des

modalités d'exécution des travaux ou de l'activité, du fonctionnement

des ouvrages ou installations, de la nature, de l'origine et du volume

des eaux utilisées ou affectées et compte tenu des variations

saisonnières et climatiques ;

Comportant, lorsque le projet est de nature à affecter de façon

notable un site Natura 2000 au sens de l'article L. 414-4, l'évaluation

de ses incidences au regard des objectifs de conservation du site ;

Justifiant, le cas échéant, de la compatibilité du projet avec le schéma

directeur ou le schéma d'aménagement et de gestion des eaux et de

sa contribution à la réalisation des objectifs visés à l'article L. 211-1

ainsi que des objectifs de qualité des eaux prévus par l'article D. 211-

10 ;

Précisant s'il y a lieu les mesures correctives ou compensatoires

envisagées.

Informations

supplémentaires

Moyens de surveillance ou d'évaluation des prélèvements et des

déversements prévus ;

Eléments graphiques, plans ou cartes utiles à la compréhension des

pièces du dossier



Figure 4: Procédure de déclaration de prélèvement



Figure 5: Procédure d’autorisation de prélèvement



Encart 1: Déclaration des forages

Les déclarations de forages concernent tous les forages de plus de 10 mètres de

profondeur et permettent de tenir à jour un inventaire des points de recherches et de

prélèvements effectués dans

le sous-sol.

Le demandeur doit remplir un formulaire adressé à la DREAL, précisant :

Les noms et adresses du propriétaire du forage ou du maître d’ouvrage

Le nom et adresse de l’entreprise de forage

La nature du forage (puits- forage),

L’objet du forage (recherche d’eau, reconnaissance de sol , autre,)

Si recherche d’eau :

o indication de l’usage domestique ou pas

o indication de la consommation annuelle envisagée ( + ou - 1 .000 m3)

Le nombre et la profondeur prévue (exprimée en ml)

La localisation des travaux, département, commune, rue, lieu-dit

La durée probable des travaux

La date de début des travaux

La DREAL accuse réception au déclarant (entreprise de forage ou maître d’ouvrage) et en

fait copie au Bureau des Recherches Géologiques et Minières. Ce courrier précise

également qu’en application du Code de l’Environnement et de la loi sur l’Eau, d’autres

démarches sont à faire, à la Préfecture de département - Bureau de l’Environnement, soit :

une déclaration pour le forage, (rubrique 110 de la nomenclature de la Loi sur l’eau)

Puis par la suite si le forage est équipé d’une pompe :

une déclaration pour le forage équipé d’une pompe dont le débit est compris entre 8 et 80

m3/heure,

une demande d’autorisation préfectorale pour le forage dont le débit est supérieur à 80

m3/ heure.

Source : www.paca.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/Les-forages-r509.html

http://www.paca.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/imprime-forage2013_cle57e1c1.pdf



B.Case of the Crete River Basin, in

Greece

1. Presentation of the study and objectives of the workshop

1.1. Context and objectives of the study

The Blueprint to Safeguard Europe’s Water Resources34

sets out the future EU agenda on water

policy. It identifies over-abstraction, also due to lack of sufficient controls on abstraction, as a

significant pressure that needs to be tackled by MS to allow the achievement of Water Framework

Directive (WFD) good status objectives. It outlines, amongst others, a specific action to “Apply

Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES), now Copernicus, services to detect non-

authorised abstractions”. Copernicus35

is the European Programme for the establishment of a

European capacity for Earth Observation (EO).

As part of the action lines mandated in the Blueprint, DG-ENV has commissioned a study which is

currently carried out by BIO and UCLM to test how to make best use of EO systems, together with

information at local scale, in order to identify and manage non-authorised abstractions, in particular

from agriculture.

1.2. Objectives of the workshop

In the context of this action line, a series of exploratory workshops will be held in MS with the

following objectives

To better understand the perceived need of water managers in the MS to monitor

and manage irrigated areas and their water consumption, in particular also to detect

non-authorised abstraction,

To inform and discuss how EO can answer to this need and what are the benefits

and limits (and how can we address the latter).

To explore opportunities for supporting irrigation water management by providing

EO-assisted tools and information to water managers, users and other stakeholders

and to verify whether the solutions proposed for a selected case example can be

used in other parts of the country.





The present document is the main outcome of the workshop that was conducted in Heraklion on 30

June 2014.

2. Current situation of water use and abstractions

2.1. Overall context of water resources and water use

The Crete River Basin District covers a surface area of 8,344.54 km2. It consists of three river

basins (Figure 6):

the river basin of North part of Chania-Rethimno-Irakleio (GR39) with an area of

3,676.06 km2;

the river basin of South part of Cania-Rethimno-Irakleio (GR40), with an area of

2,798.02 km2;

the river basin of East Crete (GR41), with an area of 1,870.28 km2.

Figure 6: Crete River Basin District

The climate of Crete is a transitional intermediary type between continental and continental desert,

characterised by mild winter and relatively cool summer. The mean annual precipitation in Crete

reaches 927 mm, which correspond to 7.69 billion cubic meters of precipitation per year;

nevertheless more than 60% of that amount is lost through evapotranspiration36

.

Agriculture has a great economic weight in the region. The total agricultural land, in Crete RBD, is

2,554 km2, while the irrigated land estimated in 1,079.09 km

2, or 42.2% of the total agricultural

land. The total need of water to meet the irrigation demands reaches 439x106 m

3/year, or 85.3% of

the total water needs of the Crete RBD.

Characteristics of the Crete River Basin District:

Total theoretical water availability estimated to 2860 hm3

About 85% of the available water is used for irrigation

1,079.09 km2 of irrigated land

36 Data from Draft of Crete’s River Basin District Management Plan (2014)



320x106 m

3 of water abstracted every year, of which 27x10

6 m

3 (or 8.4%) come from

surface water and 290x106 m

3 (or 91.6%) come from groundwater (data from

Preliminary River Basin Management Plan for Crete River Basin District)

As the above data reveal, water supply in the area, increasingly relies on groundwater abstractions.

Although the current number of private wells within the region is not accurately known, it has

steadily increased since the 1970s and so has the quantity of water abstracted from groundwater

sources.

2.2. Water governance and water rights allocation

Conflicting water uses in the Crete region may result from high water demands in a context of low

resource availability. Management of water abstractions, in particular through water allocation,

aims to ensure the sustainable use of water resources.

Water administration authorities in Greece, are currently undergoing profound transformation in

order for water governance to comply with the requirements of the European Water Framework

Directive. The present description of the institutional framework for the management of water

abstraction is a picture of the current situation.

Responsibilities on water rights allocation and water abstraction management are distributed at

national, regional and local level as illustrated in Figure 7.

Law 3199/2003 provides for the issuance of water use permits. Permits are granted to any legal or

natural person for the satisfaction of their estimated needs based on the river basin management

plan for the Crete region. Permits are established for a specific use and a specific amount of water.

While the River Basin Districts have been determined, the Decentralised Regions are the

managing authorities for these Districts and as such, they are responsible, among other, for (Law

3199/2003):

the promotion of the sustainable use of water, based on the long term protection of

the available water resources;

the ensuring of the balance between water abstraction from groundwater and its

enrichment;

the prevention of the deterioration of the surface waters and groundwater;

the upgrade and restoration of water systems;

the gradual reduction of the pollution from priority substances and the pause or the

gradual elimination of all emissions, discharges and leakages of dangerous priority

substances;

the mitigation of flood and draughts effects; and

the application of all the targets and standards for the protected areas.



Figure 7: Responsibilities on water rights allocation and water abstraction management

The Common Ministerial Decision 43504/2005 governs every new water abstraction action in

Greece, while the Common Ministerial Decision 150559/2011 governs the permitting process for

existing water rights. Both these Decisions, in line with the Law 3199/2003, determine that the

General Secretary of the Decentralised Region (in which the River Basin District is located) is the

competent authority responsible for the allocation of water rights. In case that a River Basin District

is extended in the administrative boundaries of more than one Regions, then the responsibilities

could be allocated between the Regions, or one Region could be determined as solely responsible.

The National Water Committee (with its Decision on 16/07/2010) determined the River Basin

Districts and the responsible Region for their management.

Common Ministerial Decisions 43504/2005 and 150559/2011 define the water rights. There are 19

water right categories grouped in 5 main groups (see in the end of the case study).

The Greek Legislation separates the water rights in a) existing water rights (which predate the 20-

12-2005, publishing date of the Common Ministerial Decision 43504/2005) and don’t have permits

or must renew their permits and b) new water rights.

Regional Direction of Water, River Basin District of Crete

Responsible for the establishment and application of the River Basin Management

Plan (every 6 years) and for the establishment of measures aiming at promoting

sustainable water use, control over hydraulic works developed for the exploitation

of water

Ministry of the Environment Urban Planning and Public Work

Responsible for elaborating National Water Plans, monitoring of quantity of waters

For each River Basin District, composition of the characteristics and the impact of

human activity and economic analysis of water use

Water user

Application for concession rights, incl. data about:

Ownership

Water right category

Details of the exploitation activity (e.g. crop type, irrigated area and system of irrigation

Origin of the abstracted water

Annual quantity

Approval of environmental permits for the activity

Chemical and/or microbiological water analysis by a certified laboratory

Allocation

of water

rights

according

to RBMP

and control

Information on the region water needs

National Water Plan



For new permits or renewal of permits for existing water rights and for new water rights, the

following are required:

An application form that must include:

details of the area (Region, city, or village, the ownership status of the area);

details of the water use (water right category, kind and size of the exploitation activity

[e.g. crop type, irrigated area and system of irrigation]);

details of the water (origin, quantity [in m3 per year], quality);

brief technical description of the existing infrastructure.

Approval of environmental permits for the activity;

A 1:5000 map of the area, which must include the existing water abstraction

activities in a radius of 200m;

Chemical and/or microbiological water analysis by a certified laboratory;

Copy of a legal document, which certifies the ownership of the area;

In areas with collective water management networks, a certificate of inability of

service by that network.

The Water Directorates of the Decentralised Regions are responsible for the monitoring and the

application control of these water rights. The above procedure is the same for both groundwater

and surface water abstractions.

Currently there is no national database for water rights, but a National Register of Water

Abstraction Points established at 10/01/2014, with the Common Ministerial Decision 145026/2014

and until 15/05/2014, all water right holders must register in it. This National Register will include

new and old water abstraction points, active and inactive and their respective rights. The database

will also include data for each point like spatial data, use data (starting year, water right category,

and annual water withdrawal), technical characteristics of the point (depth, diameter, existence of

metering device, power of the pump, piping network). All the points will be presented in a Digital

Map, with their coordinates per River Basin District.

Moreover, the Ministry of Environment, Energy & Climate Change, with the Common Ministerial

Decision 140384/2011 created the National Monitoring Network for the quantitative and qualitative

monitoring of water resources. After its full implementation, all the relevant quantity and quality data

will be available to the public. That National Monitoring Network will be a very useful tool for water

abstraction management.

According to Law 3199/2003 the first river basin management plan should have been drafted and

approved by the end of 2009. However, the river basin management plan for the Crete region is

still under pending approval at the present day.

Since the management plan for the region has not been issued yet, the Ministry of Environment,

Energy and Climate Change indicates in a circular issued in 2011 that: “when an application for a

permit is filed but the relevant river basin management plan has not yet been issued, the permit

shall be granted on the condition that the work or activity to be undertaken is deemed to be

compatible with the policy of rational water management and environmental protection applicable

to the specific region” (Greek Law Digest website, 2012).



2.3. Non-authorised abstractions: what do we know?

Water resources in the Crete River Basin are under pressure. Non-authorised water abstractions

represent a real challenge for water managers within the region, as the sustainable use and

access to water for all users requires complying with the water allocation plan provided by the river

basin authority.

Ensuring that water abstractions are authorised requires verifying:

the existence of a water right to abstract water (case A in Figure 8); and

the compliance of water abstractions with this water right, i.e. verifying that volumes

of water abstracted do not exceed authorised amounts or that they comply with e.g.

seasonal use restrictions (case B in Figure 8).

In the first case, all irrigated areas need to be identified and cross-checked with any available

information or database on irrigable areas (i.e. areas with a right to irrigate). In the second case,

water consumption needs to be monitored and cross-checked with the authorised abstraction

amount.

Figure 8 recapitulates all the steps that are necessary for the detection of non-authorised water

abstractions as well as the available tools/data that are used or could be used within the

Consortium area to detect illegal abstractions. For each type of non-authorised abstractions, if any

of the three first steps is not met, the competent authority in charge of water abstraction monitoring

will not be able to conclude whether there is a case of illegal abstraction.

Groundwater abstractions are predominant in the Crete River Basin Area. A study in the area

registered 2.600 wells in 2000, while the Water Directorate in Crete estimated the number of wells

at 5.000. There are also a great number of wells without permits (Preliminary River Basin

Management Plan).

Currently there is no organised monitoring program for the compliance of water abstractions with

water rights in the area. In situ monitoring inspections (regarding valid water rights) are conducted

every year to a random 1% of the farmers who are entitled for direct payments by the Payment and

Control Agency for Guidance and Guarantee Community Aid (OPEKEPE). The Strategic

Environmental Impact Assessment for the River Basin Management Plan of the Crete’s River Basin

District suggested a series of measures for the control of water abstractions from surface water and

groundwater. These measures included:

installation of monitoring devices on all water abstraction points;

register of all the consumers with the biggest abstractions;

in-situ monitoring inspections (at least twice per year) for the inspection of the

abstraction points and the installed monitoring devices.

Moreover, there is no organised plan of emergency in case of extreme events (e.g. draughts

leading to water restriction periods). According to EPI-Water European Project (http://www.feem-

project.net/epiwater/) “Drought Management Plans or other policy instruments are lacking, and

drought management is currently based on “crisis management” rather than on a pro-active and

preparedness approach.

In general, there is a lack of communication between the responsible authorities and of a

centralised way of reporting, monitoring and communicating the available information. Recent

actions, however, like the creation of the National Register of Water Abstraction Points and the

National Monitoring Network, are steps towards a solution to that situation.



Approaches for the detection of non-authorised

water abstractions

Available tools within the river basin

Defining the type of non-authorised abstraction to be identified 1

A.Absence of water rights B.Exceedance of authorised

amount

s

Identification of irrigated areas through field inspections,

land-use maps, cadastral maps or Earth Observation-derived

information (NDVI) supported with ground truth

Identification of existing wells or surface water derivation

through field inspections, patrols or using orthophotos, record of

registered wells

The Army Geographical Agency

maps, topography, land use, GIS

Identifying the areas of interest: irrigated areas or abstraction points 2

GIS subsystem developed by the

National Data Bank of Hydrological

and Meteorological Information with

incomplete information about farmers

and irrigation water (see Figure 9)

Verifying the existence of a water right for the specific location of the identified irrigated area, well or surface water deviation point that has been identified

Estimating water

consumption through field

inspection and in-situ

metering or according to

operational hours and

delivery flow or using Earth

Observation-derived

information (maps of

evapotranspiration)

Verifying that volumes of

water abstracted at the

specific abstraction point

comply with the authorised

amount

Referring to a registry of

water rights that indicates

the specific spatial location

of the intended irrigated land

Referring to a registry of

water rights that indicates

the specific spatial location

of the abstraction point and

the authorised amount of

water to be abstracted

Up to now, there are no complete

records of water rights

Referring to registry of water rights 3

Verifying compliance of water use with water rights 4

Figure 8: Approaches for the detection of non-authorised water abstractions and available

tools within the Crete River Basin District



The National Data Bank of Hydrological and Meteorological Information has not been updated for

the last years (Figure 9). Instead, the Ministry of Environment, Energy & Climate Change, with the

Common Ministerial Decision 140384/2011 created the National Monitoring Network for the

quantitative and qualitative monitoring of water resources. After its full implementation, all the

relevant quantity and quality data will be available to the public. That National Monitoring Network

will be a very useful tool for water abstraction management.

2.4. Identified challenges and water managers’ needs for the

detection of non-authorised abstractions

Despite all the tools available and the efforts made by the national and regional authorities,

technical, economic and governance issues make it difficult to have a clear vision of non-

authorised water abstraction. Several challenges for water managers have been identified. They

can be grouped into four main categories.

Managing competing water uses

Agriculture is the main water user in the river basin. The high water demand in summer for

domestic uses (population growth and increase water demand due to tourism) and agriculture

(increase water demand due to a hot and dry summer) makes the provision of water services more

complex. The main difficulty for water managers within the region is to deal with a lack of water

resources and to reconcile water needs for two activities that have a huge impact on the region

economy: agriculture and tourism.

Several initiatives and Action Plans are promoting a more efficient water resources management

within the river basin. They invite farmers to a shift towards less water demanding crops, more

sustainable irrigation methods through educational programs (PLEIADeS, 2008). Strategic

Environmental Impact Assessment for the River Basin Management Plan mentions several times

that incentives must be applied, but there is no description of the kind of incentives or the way of

application.

Data on water use, land use and geographical data

National Data Bank of Hydrological and Meteorological Information National data bank that gathers all information collected by the four national Ministries above. Up to 2005 only the institutions that had contributed to the creation of this data bank had access to the data. It was planned that data would be available to other institutions and research organisations.

Ministry of the

Environment

Urban Planning

and Public Work

Ministry of

Agriculture

Ministry of Interior Ministry of

Development

Data on water use and agricultural census

Data on municipal water consumption

Data on land use, pop. and groundwater

Figure 9: National Data Bank of Hydrological and Meteorological Information



Compiling and updating information on water rights

Up to now, there are no complete records of existing water rights within the region which makes the

verification of compliance of water use with water rights (step 3 and 4 in Figure 8) more difficult or

impossible in some cases.

The National Monitoring Network for the quantitative and qualitative monitoring of water resources

and the National Register of Water Abstraction Points, which recently established, could be a very

useful tool for the identification of areas of interest (i.e. area where illegal water abstraction could

be expected) (step 2 in Figure 8) lacks information on farmers and irrigation water (Tsarakis et al.,

2005).

Controlling volumes of water abstracted at every abstraction site and point of use

Not all the existing regulatory instruments are properly implemented. Measures used to monitor

their correct application are not effective (WWF, 2003) (refer to step 4 in Figure 8).

The Draft River Basin Management Plan of the Crete River Basin District (2014) suggested a

series of measures for the control of water abstractions from surface water and groundwater.

These measures included the installation of monitoring devices on all water abstraction points and

in situ monitoring inspections (at least twice per year) for the inspection of the abstraction points

and the installed monitoring devices, among others. The implementation of these measures will be

a great step forward, towards a more sustainable management of water resources.

Having adequate financial resources

The region lacks adequate economic, financial and administrative resources to deal with non-

authorised water abstraction. The different competent authorities are deprived of the adequate

infrastructure, human resources and material in order to apply an efficient water policy.

Centralised power and fragmentation of competences

Dealing with a centralised power

Many government Ministries are involved in water management issues. The regional authority of

Crete is responsible for ground and surface water matters but, in practice, all decision-making

processes are maintained at a central level (WWF, 2003).

The transfer of authority in water issues from the Ministries to the Regional Directions of Water is

slowly occurring mainly because of an inadequate operational infrastructure in the regions which

were until now unconnected with the management of water resources (Mahleras et al., 2007).

Fragmentation of competences

Many authorities, at different administration level are in charge of water abstraction management

for the same area. All the competent authorities are compartmentalised and not well coordinated

and have more difficulties in making decisions37

. Overlapping functions occur and may decrease

the water management efficiency (Mahleras et al., 2007).

37 http://environ.chemeng.ntua.gr/wsm/



Nevertheless, the recent legislation and predominately Law 3199/2003 (in accordance with the

Water Framework Directive) tries to rationalise the water resources management. According to the

Law, the Water Directorate of the Decentralised Region (in which the River Basin District is

located) is the competent authority responsible for the management of water resources. In case

that a River Basin District is extended in the administrative boundaries of more than one Regions,

then the responsibilities could be allocated between the Regions, or one Region could be

determined as solely responsible. The National Water Committee (with its Decision on 16/07/2010)

determined the River Basin Districts and the responsible Region for their management.

Undergoing a transitional period

The Greek water administrations are undergoing structural changes. All river basin management

plans have not been accepted yet by the European Commission. Some of them such as the river

basin management plan for the Crete region are under pending approval. The region is

experiencing a transitional period and the water authorities have to deal with it and grant water

rights approval without having necessary a clear legal framework.

3. How Earth Observation could meet your needs to address illegal water

abstraction

The three main challenges for water managers in addressing non-authorised water abstractions

described above are equally found in other Greek river basin districts. Earth observation may offer

promising opportunities to overcome these challenges:

only a small number of flow meters are installed, which could be complemented with

EO-derived maps of water consumption, thus forming a hybrid monitoring system,

which in other member states has been recommended by water authorities;

an EO-based monitoring system has been demonstrated to be more cost-effective

and cheaper than full-area coverage volumetric metering. This could help overcome

the lack of financing;

the estimated large number of wells would again point in the direction of an EO-

based, ideally hybrid, system, as it requires covering large areas at fine spatial

resolution.

3.1. Requirements for operational implementation and maintenance

An operational EO-based system for the detection of non-authorised water abstractions requires

the following data:

dense time series of high resolution imagery; Landsat8, DEIMOS and, ideally,

SENTINEL2 covering crop growing season;

agrometeorological station network;

cadastral limits of plot with water rights;

ancillary information about main crops phenology and development;

existing land use/land cover maps.



More specifically, it requires bi-weekly to monthly EO images from a high-resolution (HR) Virtual

Constellation (multi-sensor time series at 10-30m resolution), plus the following non-EO data:

vector maps of farms and water management units (e.g., from rural cadastre;

orthophoto; public maps) for the purpose of verifying compliance with existing water

rights and allocations;

daily agrometeorological station and rain gauge data for the calculation of crop water

consumption;

flow meter data in selected locations for calibration and continuous ground truthing

of crop water consumption.

Ideally, these data need to be integrated in a webGIS in order to provide a tool for stakeholder

participation, collaboration and transparent governance.

The cost of implementing and running such a service has been estimated at the order of 60-

100,000 EUR per year for an irrigated area of 50-100,000 ha, spatially distributed on the field of

view of a typical Landsat scene (180x180 km) (depending on image overpass location).

3.2. Synthesis of assets and shortcomings of the use of EO,

including MS-wide applicability

Pilot studies have been conducted in several areas in Greece on the use of EO for water

management purposes, e.g. in Thessaly during PLEIADeS (2008). Stakeholders at local level

(prefectures, municipalities) have generally expressed their interest in being involved and in

benefiting from the technology. The Cretan Nagref Institute has been offering an online irrigation

advisory based on agrometeorological station data, which could provide an ideal basis for “plug-in”

of EO data. The basis of operational capacity (relevant EO expertise and experience, existing GIS-

based services) is also available at several universities and research institutions (e.g. University of

Thessaly, Agricultural University of Athens, NAGREF). However, so far these studies have

remained limited at pilot stage.

On the other hand, the water managers’ needs, as described above, could be fulfilled by an EO-

based monitoring system. So the open question is how to best match the existing requirements

with the current capacity, in the current and evolving policy and governance context. Water

governance in Greece is at a crossroads, with major innovations and reorganisation taking place

that could provide an excellent opportunity for introducing EO-based monitoring.

As in other regions, key benefits of EO-based monitoring of abstractions include:

large geographical coverage at adequate spatial and temporal resolution;

good accuracy;

vastly increased efficiency of surveillance and inspection;

objective assessment tool and trusted by water users as such;

additional development of land-use datasets through LPIS;

vastly reduced monitoring cost and needs for human resources;

acceptance by users and demonstrated high interest of representatives of water

authorities.



Technical barriers exist but could mostly be overcome, as follows:

the reliance on cloud conditions can be alleviated by using a multi-sensor

constellation of satellites combined with a multi-annual agronomic knowledge base

(available in most important irrigated areas in both countries).

area with small cultivated parcels can be covered with higher resolution images

(Sentinel-2 will allow for resolving 0.3 ha, several commercial satellites provide even

much higher resolution).

extended and long-standing EO capabilities and expertise is available and several

pilots have been successfully accomplished.

An essential barrier, that so far has not been addressed, is the recognition of EO as legal evidence

and its anchoring in national policy.

4. Background information – Categories of water rights

Common Ministerial Decisions 43504/2005 and 150559/2011 define the water rights. There are 19

water right categories grouped in 5 main groups:

1.Drinking water supply

a.Drinking water, nutrition, cleaning, irrigation of green areas

b.Water supply of public spaces and public stores

c.Air-conditioning, thermoregulation

d.Construction

2.Agricultural use

a.Irrigation

b.Stock raising

c.Aquaculture

d.Fish and shellfish welfare

e.Agribusiness

3.Industrial use

a.Direct industrial use

b.Indirect industrial use

c.Bottling

d.Cooling, thermoregulation

e.Fire safety

4.Energy production

a.Hydroelectric facilities

b.Thermoelectric facilities

5.Recreation

a.Hotels, motels, camps

b.Special touristic facilities (spas, etc.)

c.Sports – recreational activities (sailing, rowing, water ski, swimming, thematic parks, etc.)



5. References

Chartzoulakis K., Paranychianakis N. and Angelakis A., 2001. Water resources management in the

island of Crete, Greece with emphasis on the agricultural use. Water Policy 3: 193-205.

Χαρτζουλάκης, ΚΣ: ΒΙΩΣΙΜΗ ΔΙΑΧΕΙΡΙΣΗ ΤΩΝ ΥΔΑΤΙΚΩΝ ΠΟΡΩΝ ΣΤΗ ΓΕΩΡΓΙΑ ΣΕ

ΞΗΡΟΘΕΡΜΙΚΕΣ ΣΥΝΘΗΚΕΣ. Manuscript distrubuted at Crete Workshop, July 2014.

EASAC (2010): Groundwater in the Southern Member States of the European Union: an assessment

of current knowledge and future prospects. Country report for Greece. Available at:

http://www.easac.eu/fileadmin/PDF_s/reports_statements/Greece_Groundwater_country_report.pdf

Kontogianni V., Pytharouli S. and Stiros S. (2007) Ground subsidence, Quaternary faults and

vulnerability of utilities and transportation networks in Thessaly, Greece. Environmental Geology, June

2007, Volume 52, Issue 6, pp. 1085-1095. [Online] Available at:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00254-006-0548-y?no-access=true

Mahleras A, Kontogianni A, Skourtos M. (2007) Pinios River Basin – Greece, Status Report of the EU

funded project “AquaMoney, Development and Testing of Practical Guidelines for the Assessment of

Environmental and Resource Costs and Benefits in the WFD”. Contract no SSPI-022723, 15/4/2007

PLEIADeS (2008). Available at: www.pleiades.es

Tsarakis et al. (2005)

WWF (2003) “Water and Wetland Index - Critical issues in water policy across Europe”. Results

overview for the Pinios river basin (Greece)

http://www.easac.eu/fileadmin/PDF_s/reports_statements/Greece_Groundwater_country_report.pdf

European Commission - Use of Earth observation by water managers to detect and manage non-

authorised water abstractions | 40

C.Case of Campania & Puglia

Regions, in Italy






significant pressure that needs to be tackled by Member States to allow the achievement of Water

Framework Directive (WFD) good status objectives. It outlines, amongst others, a specific action to

“Apply Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES), now Copernicus, services to

detect non-authorised abstractions”. Copernicus39

is the European Programme for the

establishment of a European capacity for Earth Observation (EO).




from agriculture.


In the context of this action line, a series of exploratory workshops are being held in MS with the

following objectives:

to better understand the perceived need of water managers in the MS to monitor and

manage irrigated areas and their water consumption, in particular also to detect

non-authorised abstraction;

to inform and discuss how EO can answer to this need and what are the benefits

and limits (and how can we address the latter);

to explore opportunities for supporting irrigation water management by providing EO-

assisted tools and information to water managers, users and other stakeholders and

to verify whether the solutions proposed for a selected case example can be used in

other parts of the country.





The present document is the main outcome of the workshop that was conducted in Piedimonte on

25 March 2014.

2. Current situation: experience from Campania and Puglia regions

2.1. Overall context of water resources and water use

In Southern Italy, the traditional rural economy has been transformed into a highly specialised,

profit-making agriculture in many areas. Irrigation systems have been modernised by transforming

old open-channel schemes into pressurised pipeline networks, now covering more than 70% of the

total irrigated area. In most cases, the “on-demand” method for water distribution has been adopted

in substitution of the old rotational schedule. This modernisation has greatly enhanced the overall

efficiency of the irrigation systems, with tangible benefits for crop production and water

conservation.

However, more recently, many modernised irrigation areas have experienced an increase in the

demand of water for civil and industrial use and a contemporary reduction of water availability for

agriculture. Therefore, irrigation agencies and farmers’ associations have been asked to further

improve the efficiency of their irrigation networks and delivery systems by means of a more rational

use of limited water resources.

Actual management of water resources for irrigation results from compromises between the

strategies of irrigation agencies and regional policy, in order to address environmental concerns

and conflicting water uses while meeting actual farmer water needs, related to crop production.

These two management levels are strictly connected. For this reason, in Italy Irrigation and Land

Reclamation Consortia have always played an important role in land and water resource

management. Traditionally, Consortia were created mainly to manage drainage canals after land

reclamation works (as stated by the general law on 1933); successively, with the introduction of

irrigation, they were entitled to manage it. The way in which they are organised and, above all, their

ability to bring together public and private interests have allowed the Consortia to respond to the

changing needs of a society which has changed radically, in particular with regards to how natural

resources such as water and land are used.

We are presenting here three examples of consortia, two in the Campania region where EO has

already been introduced and one in the Puglia region, which was the first to introduce volume-

based water fees.

Consortia di Bonifica in Destra Sele and di Sanio Alifano in the Campania region

The Irrigation and Land reclamation Consortium “Sannio Alifano” is located in the Northern

part of Campania Region, and it covers 82 municipalities in the Provinces of Caserta, Benevento

and Avellino. The predominant activity of Consortium Sannio Alifano is irrigation, although it is still

responsible for the operation and maintenance of drainage canal network. In 2003, the Regional

Law n.4 has established the new Consortium administrative domain, which has an extension of

194,837 ha, with 18,970 ha of irrigated land divided in two districts:

Sannio Alifano (14,070 ha), with predominant herbaceous crops and forages;

Telesina Valley (4,900ha), with predominant tree-crops (vineyards, fruits and olive

trees).



The Consortium Bonifica Sannio-Alifano is administrated by 25 delegates elected among the 30

000 farmers and landowners who pay for the irrigation and land reclamation services and members

by right (9 representatives from the 3 Provinces and 1 from the Regional Government).

The Consortium operates the irrigation distribution network from 1st May to 30

th September, with an

average seasonal delivery of 4500 m3/ha. Water, diverted from the Volturno river, is conveyed by

means of open channels (serving a total extension of 4 740 ha) and pressurised pipelines (14 230

ha), the latter representing about 3/4 of total irrigated area. Complementary groundwater resources

from private wells may also be used to meet annual crop water requirements.

The Consorzio di Bonifica in Destra Sele (Salerno) covers the right portion of the hydrographic

basin of Sele river with extension of 34 000 ha (of which approx. 18 000 ha are cultivated). It is

delimited on the west side by the Tyrrhenian sea and on the southern part by the Sele river. Main

crops are industrial vegetable crops in greenhouses and forages during the winter-spring period,

maize and fruit-trees in summer. Irrigation is applied intensively from April to October.

Greenhouses apply irrigation permanently with extraction from deep aquifer (with excellent water

quality). During the 1930's the building of a small dam along the Sele river allowed the supply of

water for the civil, industrial and agricultural uses and for the production of electricity. When the first

irrigation project started (1950), the Consortium obtained the allowance for diverting a maximum of

6 m3/s from the reservoir. The rapid development of economic activities in the area, following the

re-use of reclaimed lands, and the contemporary decrease of water resource availability have

determined the progressive reduction of water uptake for irrigation. Although dramatic drought

conditions have not been faced yet, the actual equilibrium in the irrigation system may collapse if

fast changes in cropping practices or increasing water resource scarceness occur.



Figure 10: Irrigated areas in the Consortium Sannio Alifano (in brown)



Consortium of Bonifica della Capitanata in the Puglia region

The Puglia region covers 19 361 km2 in the South Eastern part of the Italian Boot (Figure 11).

There, climate is of Mediterranean semi-arid type, characterised by a hot and dry summer and a

moderately cold and rainy winter season. Agriculture has a great economic weight in the region

and agricultural land represents more than 70% of the total area. Agricultural land is fragmented,

composed of small parcels with an average surface of 7.5 ha (Massorutto, personal

communication, 2014). Most of the agricultural production is based on irrigation, which relies upon

water inflow from surrounding regions (Basilicata) and abstraction from groundwater aquifers

(Lamaddalena, 2004). The Capitanata Plain (441 579 ha), in red Figure 11, is under the authority of

the Consortium of Bonifica della Capitanata. It is a local authority administrated by farmers who

own the land within the Consortium area (almost 80 000 farmers) and members by right (18

representatives from the region, municipality, province and mountain community) (Lamaddalena,

2004).

Characteristics of the Capitanata Plain:

Cultivation: vegetables, vineyards, fruit-

crops and olive trees

Crop water requirements > 330 million3

About 121 266 ha irrigated, i.e. 27.5% of

the total area, of which 45% are irrigated

through the Consortium “Bonifica della

Capitanata” water distribution network

Annual water withdrawal by the Consortium

estimated to about 150.5 million m3, with

an efficiency of 86.7%. Most of it comes

from the Fortore watershed and Occhito

dam in the Northern part and Ofanto in the

Southern part

Legend:

Grey: Puglia region

Red: Administrative boundaries of the irrigation Consortium Bonifica della Capitanata

Blue: Irrigated land

Green: Non-irrigated land

Source: Adapted from Consorzio per la Bonifica della Capitanata website, 2014; Lamaddalena, 2004

Figure 11: Map of the irrigated areas in the Capitanata Plain, focus of this case study

Out of the 150 million m3 distributed by the consortium, about 130 million m

3 are effectively

distributed to irrigation fields, because of water losses during storage and conveyance but also

possibly because of suspected non-authorised water withdrawals along the distribution network

(Lamaddalena, 2004). Furthermore, the Consortium is not able to provide water to all water users.

Only 45% of the irrigated land is irrigated through the Consortium distribution network. The

fulfilment of the total irrigation demand in the district is limited by the amount of water available and

constrained by the hydraulic capacity of the conveyance and distribution network. Complementary

groundwater resources from private wells may be used to meet annual crop water requirements.



2.2. Water governance and water rights allocation

Conflicting water uses within the three consortia result from higher water demands in a context of

lower resource availability. Management of water abstractions, in particular through water

allocation, aims to ensure the sustainable use of water resources.

With the institutional law n. 215 on 15 February 1933 (“Nuove norme per la bonifica integrale”), the

Irrigation and Land Reclamation Consortia have been recognised as local authorities delegated by

the State to deal with irrigation and land reclamation and given substantial powers for water

management in the agricultural sector. At the beginnings of the 70’s, the State passed the

responsibility of irrigation to the Regions, which later on (1990-2000) have reorganised the physical

boundaries of the existing Consortia and increased their responsibilities by introducing rural

environmental protection among the goals.

Concession rights are assigned to a Consortium by the Basin Authority and the Regional

authorities. They are granted for a specific use and give right to a certain amount of water. The

river water withdrawal is authorised by fixing a certain amount of maximum flow rate and seasonal

volume. Flow rate is established in such a way that a minimum flow is assured for environmental

purposes.

In the present situation, the Regional Authority entitles water management to the Consortia, which

in turn are responsible for irrigation scheduling, attribution of consumption rates to each user,

control of water use. Figure 12 highlights key stakeholders and responsibilities for the water

governance in the area covered by the Consortia.

The Consortia activate and promote public investments for developing irrigation and land

reclamation infrastructures; operation and maintenance of such infrastructures is a duty of

Consortium which collects fees from its members and associates. The Consortium holds water

rights and redistributes them to its members. On-demand schedule is the most flexible system for

delivering irrigation water, because in principle there is no restriction on water use by farmers. The

on-demand schedule does not limit the frequency, rate and duration of irrigation water applications.

This degree of flexibility would require large capabilities of the irrigation system in terms of water

storage and pipeline diameter to meet theoretical peak demand. By limiting the maximum flow rate

diverted to each outlet and by requesting farmers to ask for water availability in advance (“booking

system”), the excessive depletion of water resources can be avoided. The resulting distribution

system is called “limited rate on-demand” schedule.

In most Italy, fees do not encourage water savings by farmers as they are still collected in

proportion to the surface served. In the areas served by pressurised pipelines the unit-area fee is

higher, in order to compensate additional costs for pumping. The Consortia are planning, however,

to implement a binomial fee, composed of a fixed amount (proportional to surface) and a variable

amount, proportional to the volume abstracted, as introduced recently in the Capitanata region. To

allow this process, the pressurised pipeline system is going to be equipped with electronic metering

devices at each outlet. The issue remains, however, that vandalism acts are common on existing

metered delivery outlets.

Diversely, in order to be granted groundwater use rights for irrigation purposes, individual water

users must submit an application to the competent Province. Irrigation water rights are granted to

farmers after a registration, with specification of the cadastral units to be irrigated.



Figure 12: Water abstraction management in Campania and Puglia Regions




Non-authorised water abstractions represent a real challenge for water managers within the

Campania and Puglia region, as the sustainable use and access to water for all users requires

complying with the water allocation plan provided by the river basin authority. They relate either to

abstractions from non-registered wells, unauthorised water diversion from the Consortium’s water

distribution network or from abstractions exceeding authorised amounts.

Today, there is practically no reliable information available on the extent and amount of non-

authorised abstractions, in particular those from wells.


the existence of a water right to abstract water (similar to case A in Figure 13); and

the compliance of water abstractions with this water right, i.e. verifying that volumes

of water abstracted do not exceed authorised amounts or that they comply with e.g.



information or database on irrigable areas (i.e. areas with a right to irrigate). In the second case,

water consumption needs to be monitored and cross-checked with the authorised abstraction

amount.

Figure 13 recapitulates all the steps that are necessary for monitoring water abstractions as well as

the available tools/data that are used or could be used within a Consortium (applying equally to any

consortium) area to detect illegal abstractions.



Approaches for the detection of non-authorised water

abstractions

Available tools within the area

Defining the type of non-authorised abstraction to be identified1

A. Absence of water rights B. Exceedance of authorised

amount

(A) or (B)

Identification of irrigated areas through field inspections, land-use

maps, cadastral maps or Earth Observation-derived information

(NDVI) supported with ground truth

(A) or (B)

Identification of existing wells or surface water derivation through

field inspections, patrols or using orthophotos, record of registered

wells

GIS based on land use allows to have an overview

of the different crops and see where irrigated

areas can be expected

Identifying the areas of interest: irrigated areas or abstraction points2

Cadastral and land use maps

(A)

Verifying the existence of a

water right for the specific

location of the identified

irrigated area, well or surface

water deviation point that has

been identified

(B)

Verifying that volumes of water

abstracted at the specific

abstraction point comply with

the authorised amount

Concession rights are granted for a given

abstraction point and corresponding irrigated land

both of which must be indicated on an official

cadastral map

The water user must indicate also the amount of

water intended to be used.

Field inspections organised by regional authorities

and the Consortium

(A) Identifying irrigated areas

through field inspection and in-

situ metering or according to

operational hours and delivery

flow or using Earth

Observation-derived


evapotranspiration)

(B) Estimating water

consumption through field

inspection and in-situ metering

or according to operational

hours and delivery flow or using

Earth Observation-derived


evapotranspiration)

Estimating volumes of abstracted water3

Verifying compliance of water use with water rights4

New generation of flow-meters and AQUACARD

system introduced by the Consortium. Farmers

taking water from the same hydrant use personal

cards which measure and register water

consumption of each user


tools within the area covered by a Consortium



2.4. Identified challenges and water managers’ needs

Despite all the tools available and efforts made by the regional authorities and the three Consortia,

technical, economic and governance issues still make it difficult to have a clear vision of actual

withdrawals and non-authorised water abstractions. Several challenges for water managers have

been identified. They can be grouped into three main categories: compiling and updating information

on water rights, controlling volumes of water abstracted and having adequate water pricing system.


As shown in Figure 13, having an updated record of water rights and land use cover map is essential

for monitoring water abstractions and for detecting non-authorised abstraction types.

Land-use based GIS can be used to guide field inspections, by identifying expected irrigated areas.

However, it requires frequent updating (at least annually) for field inspection to be efficient (step 2 of

case A and B in Figure 13).

In the application form for the use of irrigation water, the farmers and/or landowners indicate the

cadastral unit (which surface area is known) to be irrigated; the location is then identified on cadastral

maps and linked to the corresponding distribution network node. Note that water rights are not

specified in the ownership act.

The Consortium Sannio Alifano has started on 2013 a GIS inventory of irrigated plots which will be

regularly updated every year. The other consortia are in the same process.

Compiling an inventory of wells and controlling volumes of water abstracted from

groundwater

In most of the consortia areas farmers are using wells to complement the water volumes allocated

from the channel networks. Some of these wells are registered, whilst many are not and almost none

are equipped with flow meters.


In a large portion of the area served by the pressurised pipeline network, delivery outlets are equipped

with an electronic activation and metering system, called AQUACARD, which controls the valve

opening at the outlet and logs duration, date and volumes. The Aquacard system can be programmed

to limit abstraction to a fixed amount (related to the payment of fees). However, controlling every

abstraction site and point of use within the area covered by the consortia in order to assess water

consumption (step4, case B in Figure 13) can be a difficult task:

field visits are regularly required for every abstraction sites (ideally two or three visits

within an irrigation period) which can be hard to achieve considering the number of

water meters in the region;

the implementation of AQUACARD system is expensive and requires additional human

resources. Connection via mobile phone modem is being experienced but additional

investments would be needed. The card has been experimentally introduced in some

parts of some consortia (e.g. Destra Sele) and is being used in Capitanata.



Having an adequate water pricing system

In the near future, the irrigation fee within a Consortium will contain a fixed part (proportional to the

served area) and a variable part (depending on metered water consumption). Thus, the more a farmer

consumes water, the more they pay. It has been reported that when they consume little water the

price is relatively affordable but as soon as they become a bigger consumer, the difference in prices

becomes higher very rapidly. This policy on channel network water prices may encourage farmers

using illegal water abstraction to irrigate their crops (case A in Figure 13). However, this is a still on-

going process. In 2013, irrigation fees have been collected only considering the fixed part (except for

Capitanata, where a binomial fee is already in use).

In this context, the use of spatial information derived from EO data may significantly enhance the

management of irrigation systems, but it will require a rapid adaptation of the management of

Consortia to new technologies.

3. Use of Earth Observation data

3.1. Opportunities for water managers

In most Consortia of Southern Italy, the irrigation water allocation (and the application of

corresponding fees) is done on the basis of the extension of irrigated area and not of water volumes

even in presence of metered distribution networks. As a consequence, farmers are not motivated to

adopt efficient water saving strategies, which results in generalised over-irrigation and misuses of

water resources. The availability of reliable, objective and timely information about crop water

requirements allows the implementation of efficient water distribution criteria based on the actual

irrigation needs of crops.

Since 2007, however, an Irrigation Advisory Service based on near-real time distribution of EO

products is operative in the three largest Consortia in the Campania region to provide farmers and

water user associations with real-time information on crop water requirements. In 2013, the

operational irrigation advisory service in the Sannio Alifano has reached more than 250 farmers. The

service is currently implemented in the framework of the Rural Development Plan of the Campania

Region, Measure 124 Health Check (www.irrisat.it), as a further step for the implementation of E.U.

Directive n.60/2000 in the agricultural sector.

This development has its origin in the EU project DEMETER (2002-2005), where Destra Sele was one

of the pilot areas for demonstrating EO-based irrigation advisory (Calera et al. 2005, Osann et al

2006). D’Urso et al. (2006) find a 15-20% water savings potential in the use of EO, see also evaluation

statement of consortium president Vito Busillo in Figure 14 below.



Figure 14: Newspaper Il Mattino”, in occasion of the final conference of the EU-project

“DEMETER”

Based on this experience, in the irrigation area of Sannio Alifano, a trial has been conducted in 2012

and 2013 to detect non-authorised irrigated areas and water abstractions based on the analysis of

temporal series of NDVI high and medium resolution images. Accuracy assessment has been carried

out by means of field surveys. Cost-benefit effectiveness has been assessed for different

combinations of number of acquisitions and sensors (DEIMOS-1, RapidEye, Landsat 8) for EO-based

irrigation advisory in Sannio Alifano. The box below summarises the results of this analysis. Due to

lack of metering data, a direct cost-benefit analysis of EO-based abstractions monitoring in Italy is not

possible, but costs are similar.



Cost-benefits analysis for EO-based irrigation advisory in Sannio Alifano

The cost dimensioning covers a 5-year time period. The initial capital investment (CAPEX) includes the

development of the GIS and farmer’s database. CAPEX costs are amortized over the 5-years period. Operative

cost items (OPEX) cover personnel, satellite data, and other costs (field travel, software licenses), plus a flat rate

of 20% for indirect cost. Personnel-effort account for the entire satellite processing chain, including, atmospheric

correction and maps generation, quality control and Cal/Val activities, agro-meteorological data elaboration,

maintenance of spatial data infrastructures.

Satellite data cost depends on the type of data: minimum order size and required spatial resolution, which

dependents on field size (i.e., for higher field fragmentation, higher spatial resolution is needed to solve smaller

parcels).

The growing season is assumed to be 6 months, requiring a total of 12 images. Using commercial satellite data,

the service cost ranges between 55K and 67K € per growing season. On average, the cost of the satellite data

would reach around the 25% of the total cost of the service over the 5-year time. With the availability of free

satellite data from the future Sentinel-2 (S2) mission (at 10/20 m spatial resolution), we foresee an average

service cost of about 41K-52K € per growing season. If Very High spatial Resolution data were needed, the cost

of the satellite data would reach around 45-50% of the total cost, with no free S2-like option able to offer the

required spatial resolution.

Service cost per unit area (€/ha per growing season)

Service module Cost items (see table 1) Year 0 Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4

IFAS on 10000 ha

Commercial data (1+2+3+4+5+6+7) 5.5€ 5.8€ 6.0€ 6.3€ 6.7€

Free data (1+2+4+5+6+7) 4.1€ 4.3€ 4.5€ 4.8€ 5.2€

IWMS on 20000 ha

Commercial data (1+3+4+5+6) 2.3€ 2.4€ 2.4€ 2.4€ 2.4€

Free data (1+4+5+6) 1.6€ 1.6€ 1.6€ 1.7€ 1.7€

The calculation of benefits is from the farmer’s perspective, i.e. the reduction of the cost for irrigation that the

farmer can achieve with a correct amount of irrigation water. We assume that the percentage of water waste

due to over irrigation can be 20%-30% when irrigation is based only on practical experience. These values have

been observed in the pilot sites of the project and confirmed by regional estimates. Water and energy reductions

can be achieved without a reduction in yields. This has been largely recognized in literature and demonstrated in

the pilot area during various seasons directly with farmers. The analysis is based on the cost of the water service

that the farmers pay directly to the WUA with a flat rate (per ha) water tariff. Consequently, our analysis is based

only on the irrigation scheme or the on-farm costs that the farmers generally pay for water (a fee charged per

hectare or volume) as well as for any other production costs, such as seed, machinery, labour and maintenance.

The optimum irrigation volumes are based on the Standard Crop Water Requirements (CWR) for the specific crop

and climatic condition. The reduction of the cost (CR) for irrigation is calculated as the difference CR = cost of

applied irrigation – cost of max irrigation volumes.

To calculate the economic impact of water use, we consider an average over irrigation rate of 15% with three

irrigation profiles (High, Medium and Low) and a minimum/maximum cost of water of 0,03-0,1 €/m3. The

irrigation profiles express the different irrigation volumes that are required depending on the minimum and

maximum water needs of crops for given soil, climate and management conditions.

The economic impact of water use is normalized to the overall service use (active hectares per year) considering

10 000 ha of regularly irrigated areas. Note that the irrigation scheme has collective irrigation infrastructures and a

potential for irrigation of about 18 970 ha. The relationship between the cost of the service and the benefit is

shown in the figure below.

Comparison of the cost of the service vs. the expected reduction of costs for irrigation for three water use profiles.

We consider a cost of water of 0,03 €/m3 (Left) and 0,1 €/m

3 (Right). Costs are normalized to an irrigation

scheme extent of 10000 ha.



The following summary of the cost-benefit analysis considers an average cost of water of 0,07 €/m3. In this case,

the cost reduction for each profile (low, medium and high) and the cost of the service are presented in the table

below. Costs-benefits are normalized to an irrigation scheme extent of 10 000 ha. Potentially, the area covered in

the minimum order size of the satellite data (10 000 km2) can be used to provide the service in the same

collective irrigation scheme up to about 20,000 ha and in adjacent collective irrigation systems for a total area of

approximately 80 000 ha. Therefore, the cost of the service for an area of 40 000 and 80 000 ha are also

provided.

Cost of the service vs. the expected benefit (5-year average) for three irrigation profiles and a given cost of water

of 0,07 €/m3. Costs-benefits are normalized to an irrigation scheme extent of 10 000 ha, 40000 ha and 80000 ha.

Irrigation

scheme extent

(ha)

Irrigation profile Benefit of the service Cost of the service

10,000

High 31 €/ha

4.6 – 6.1 €/ha Medium 25 €/ha

Low 20 €/ha

40,000

As above As above

~ 3 €/ha

80,000 ~ 2 €/ha

However, the uptake of the new technology still needs further some adaptation to the consortium’s

routine operations.

The Capitanata consortium has expressed interest in the technology and has offered to be a pilot site

in a funding proposal currently under evaluation.




The experience mentioned above has confirmed that internalisation of EO-based procedures (but -

more in general- the use of spatial data) is a slow process in the context of irrigation Consortia.

Technological innovation is probably faster at farm level, especially where irrigation water has an

energy cost related to volume abstraction, as when pumping lift is required. Web-based GIS

technology has eliminated the need for on-site specialised software installation and has introduced

user-friendly procedures. However, the existing IT level in the Consortia is rather low to allow a quick

uptake of new technologies. Local databases used for collecting irrigation fees and cadastral

information often are not linked; in many cases, data are manually typed in digital template, with

duplications and errors. Operational implementation and maintenance requires dedicated personnel

with some informatics background and capability in merging the standard operational procedures with

new technology including EO data.

3.3. Synthesis of assets and shortcomings of the use of EO, including

MS-wide applicability

EO-based information in the context of irrigation consortia needs to be highly accurate. In the case of

IRRISAT, where EO is used for monitoring irrigation requirements, the validation is difficult due to the

scarce availability of irrigation data at farm level. Where automatic registrations of water withdrawals

from the distribution network are available, it is possible to evaluate the correspondence between the

volumes indicated by IRRISAT and those applied by the farmers both at the farm and district scale.

Most farmers have evaluated positively the usefulness of the information provided by EO, which is

seen as objective and impartial. The detection of water excessive use or illegal abstractions can easily

cover the cost of implementing the technology through the collection of potentially lost fees, provided

that trained personnel and innovative management procedures are adopted in the everyday practice.

Table 5 below shows the comparison from the point of view of consortium technical operations and the

text underneath summarises their conclusions (M. Natalizio, General Director, Sannio Alifano,

personal communication 2014).

The methodology supported by EO data appears more effective in terms of:

processing times (shorter than the process supported by aerial photos);

employment of human resources (smaller than the procedure based on field

inspection);

cost of acquisition of the data (lower than the procedures supported by aerial photos

and field checks).

It also has a positive, direct impact in terms of cost/benefit analysis.

In conclusion, despite having to go through a phase of technological innovation, the use of EO

systems, together with information at local scale seems to represent the best solution to be adopted

by Consortia to identify and manage non-authorised water abstractions in agriculture.

Furthermore, the same methodology, without appreciable increased costs, can be applied to give

farmers an additional service, i.e. the “irrigation advice” (timely information about crop water

requirements), amplifying the advantages of EO systems compared to each other.



Table 5: Comparative Analysis of different procedures for the detection of irrigated areas and

abstractions: strengths and weaknesses

PROCEDURE STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES

Field inspection Direct feedback. On site direct controls, without any

previous information, requires

considerable human resources;

Choice of the right time to control;

High cost;

Very long time;

Difficult to carry out all the checks during

the irrigation season.

Aerial photos

(by airplane)

High-resolution images;

Easy to understand for non-

technical people but with limited

quantitative information.

No information about the current status

and trend of crops growth unless we set

up a multispectral camera;

High cost of images acquisition;

Long times to schedule a sufficient

number of flights;

Difficulty quick processing;

Large number of images to cover the

entire study area;

Inability of automatic processing.

Satellite Images Qualitative/quantitative information

data on the real performance and

the status of crops growth;

Easy to program many acquisitions

during the entire irrigation season;

Cover of large areas with a single

image;

Fast processing (images are

usually supplied already pre-

processed);

Support to controls on the ground,

i.e. it’s possible to carry out

targeted controls based on previous

information, reducing the

employment of human resources;

Possibility of automating

procedures;

Affordable cost.

High cost for high-resolution images;

Need to organise a campaign of data

verification on the ground.


water abstractions

| 56

D. Case of experienced river basins

in Spain and Portugal






significant pressure that needs to be tackled by Member States (MS) to allow the achievement of

Water Framework Directive (WFD) good status objectives. It outlines, amongst others, a specific

action to “Apply Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES), now Copernicus, services to

detect non-authorised abstractions”. Copernicus41

is the European Programme for the establishment

of a European capacity for Earth Observation (EO).




from agriculture.


In the context of this action line, a series of exploratory workshops was held in MS with the following

objectives:

to better understand the perceived need of water managers in the MS to monitor and

manage irrigated areas and their water consumption, in particular also to detect non-

authorised abstraction;

to inform and discuss how EO can answer to this need and what are the benefits and

limits (and how can we address the latter);

to explore opportunities for supporting irrigation water management and compliance by

providing EO-assisted tools and information to water managers, users and other




water abstractions

| 57

stakeholders and to verify whether the solutions proposed for a selected case example

can be used in other parts of the country.

The workshop for Spain and Portugal was primarily focused on the transboundary Guadiana river

basin, but also covered most other examples of EO use for water management and abstractions

monitoring in both countries. It was held on 17 February 2014 in Madrid, hosted by the Deputy

Directorate-General for Planning and Sustainable Use of Water of the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture,

Food and Environment. The participants were numerous water professionals from the public and

private sector, the European Commission Directorate General of Environment, and environmental

NGOs. This document summarises the background study conducted by BIO and UCLM, updated with

all contributions from the workshop and its conclusions.

The present document is the main outcome of the workshop that was conducted in Madrid on 17

February 2014.

2. Current situation of water use and abstractions

2.1. Water governance and water rights allocation in Spain and

Portugal

Overview

There is an extended communication and cooperation between the two countries on transboundary

water governance issues (Antunes et al., 2008). Portugal and Spain signed the 1998 Albufeira

Convention42

that aims at harmonising the use of resources for both countries.

The new flow protocol, signed in 200843

defines flow regimes for the five transboundary river basins,

with quantified objectives. Several monitoring stations are placed in strategic locations and flows data

are checked regularly. However, the basin faces challenges related with the allocation of its limited

water resources, both surface and groundwater, which is typical of the situation in southern European

river basins. Management of water abstractions, in particular through water allocation, aims to ensure

the sustainable use of water resources. The structure and organisation of water abstraction

management are similar in the two countries. Figure 15 highlights key stakeholders and

responsibilities for the water governance in the area covered by the Water User Associations.

Concession rights are granted for irrigation purposes; they are assigned to a specific use and give

right to a certain amount of water over a certain period of time (a maximum of 75 years in Spain and

Portugal). They can be granted for groundwaters or surface waters. The water user must submit an

application to the regional authority and provide further details as indicated in Figure 15. In Spain,

according to the Ancient 1879 Water Law (in force until 1985), land owners were able to extract

groundwater without limit (groundwater was considered a private property). This situation changed

with the passing of the Water Act of 1985, which is currently in force. The Water Act of 1985 defines

groundwater as public domain, although it allows existing groundwater abstraction to continue in

operation (well owners were just required to register their wells).

42 https://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-2000-2882

43 https://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-2010-652


water abstractions

| 58

Allocation of water

rights and control

Application for water

rights, incl. data about:

- Land ownership - Source of water and

abstraction site: abstraction point + location on an official cadastral plan

- Irrigated areas (number of ha) and + location on an official cadastral map; type irrigation system and system provided for the abstraction monitoring

- Authorised water abstraction volumes: annual volumes of water that are required

Application for water rights, incl. data about:

-Land ownership -Source of water and

abstraction site: abstraction point + location on an official cadastral plan

-Irrigated areas (number of ha) and + location on an official cadastral map; type irrigation system and system provided for the abstraction monitoring

-Authorised water -abstraction volumes:

annual volumes of water that are required

Allocation of water

rights according to

Annual

Exploitation Plan

and control

Attribution of a certain

amount of water

according to RBMP

Information on local

water needs


amount of water

according to NWP

Information on the

region water needs

Commission for the Application and Development of Albufeira Convention (CADC)

Transboundary working body composed by Portuguese and Spanish delegations, responsible for carrying out studies, collecting,

processing, exchanging and managing information, implementing the technical and administrative procedures for cooperation

APA

Portuguese Environment Agency

National Authority responsible for the

elaboration of River Basin Management Plans

Consejo Nacional del Agua; National Water

Council; National authority responsible for the

elaboration of National Water Plans (NWP)

River Basin Authority

Regional authorities responsible for the

registration of concession rights and

abstraction surveillance at a regional level

Communidades de Regantes; Association of

water users; Responsible for the elaboration

of Annual Exploitation Plan and water

management at a local level

Farmers living in the Spanish part Farmers living in the Portuguese part

Associação de Benificiários

Association of water users

Responsible for water management at a

local level

Information on local

water needs


amount of water

according to RBMP

Figure 15: Water abstraction management within the Guadiana River Basin


water abstractions

| 59

As a result of this change in the consideration of groundwater use, tens of thousands of Registration

applications were issued by farmers, since the previous legal framework (ancient XIXth century law)

and modern pumping system (1970’s) allowed intensive growth of irrigated areas in La Mancha

Aquifers. Resuming: this abstraction was considered legal because of the provisions of the ancient

law.

Today, and according to the water legislation, implemented since 1985, the right to use any water can

only be obtained via an official assignation called “water concession” (concesión de aguas), which is

either issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment to the natural or legal person who

have previously applied for it to the River Basin Authority (Confederación Hidrográfica), or by the

Regional Water Government. There are some exceptions that recognise historical rights in certain

areas in Valencia y Murcia, and also the rights to use mineral waters, which are issued according to

the mining legislation. The following two paragraphs focus on the case of the River Basin Authorities

depending on the Ministry.

All concessions must be properly written down in the Water Register. With the aim to improve the

control over extractions and, in particular, the control on concessions, the necessary legal

modifications to provide further transparency to the Water Register have been made. In this way, an

electronic Water Register is being developed and implemented in each River Basin Authority, which

will be available for all citizens, so that any person will be able to know the details of the water

concessions and the uses to which the property is entitled. The e-register will help to enhance the

identification of illegal abstractions.

The River Basin Authorities are in charge of planning and management of all water resources in their

basin area, including groundwaters. They are also in charge of the control of water abstractions, for

which a unit in charge of “water police and vigilance” (Guardería Fluvial y Agentes Medioambientales)

exist in each basin. Apart from this field-, physically-based control, other techniques such as aerial

photography and remote sensing are also being employed for abstraction control. But in any case,

these EO tools should always be verified and backed by field data. They are particularly useful for

detecting specific problems.

One of the issues that has evidenced to be amongst the best ways to control non-authorised water

abstractions is the cooperation between users, who have the responsibility for the compliance with

their concession terms. For that reason, the establishment of groundwater user communities, and, in

agriculture, irrigation communities, also play the role of vigilance and police in their community, and is

currently being promoted. Additionally, the implementation of volumetric meters in water intakes with

the aim of controlling the volume abstracted is advancing further.

The special situation in Spain: Transition Period

In Spain, since the new Water Act came into force in 1985, all water has been considered public.

However, in previous legal regulation (Water Act of 1879) groundwater was private water. Due to

these legislative changes, the adaptation of the administrative status of these wells is necessary.

These uses of private groundwaters will go from private to public when one of the characteristics

(even the ownership) changes.

The ALBERCA project has been created by the government in order to update the administrative

status of the water uses, especially facilitating the processing of expedients of groundwater use and

the transformation of the private water uses into public water uses, and checking the annotations in

The Catalogue of Historical Private Abstractions. Due to the great number of water uses (over a

million water uses and more than two million of water inlets. 50% of files are groundwater use) this is a

huge undertaking. The achievement so far is the review and update of around 700.000 titles of water

uses.


water abstractions

| 60

Consequently, in Spain there are currently three different types of legal title to obtain the water use:

the legal license: a maximum period of 75 years.

the legal disposition: direct recognition of the water use by the Water Act (e.g.,

abstractions less than 7,000 m3/

yr).

the property title: in accordance to the repealed Act (generally valid until 2035).

The Water Register is a modern tool to register, modify, identify and locate all water uses. It is

already developed, but now it is being tested.

In Portugal, water resources use permits are required, under national legislation: Law No. 58/2005 of

29 December (Water Law, which partially transposes WFD) and Decree-Law No. 226-A/2007 of 31

May that regulate the use of water. In this scope, water abstraction (whatever its purpose - for

irrigation, human consumption, industry or other) is subjected to an authorization (or a previous

communication), a license or a concession depending on the use rights of the water resource (public

or private).

Authorisation is required for water abstraction of private water (except when extraction equipment has

a power lower than 5 horsepower (hp) and has no significant impact on water resources; in this case,

water abstraction needs a previous communication).

License is required for water abstraction of public water. In the case of water abstraction of public

water for irrigation of areas higher than 50 ha, for public supply or for energy production, concession is

required.

Currently, there is an online licensing system, called SILIAMB - https://siliamb.apambiente.pt/, used

not only for the permitting process, but also for the control. In particular, it comprises the self-control

reporting.

Regarding water resources management by water authority (APA, I.P. – Portuguese Environment

Agency, through regional departments), it is important to control the water abstraction and to know the

amount of water used, namely for irrigation purposes.

In both countries, water user associations are key stakeholders in the water abstraction monitoring.

They are responsible for water distribution, supplying necessary flows for irrigation and providing

technical support on water use issues to local farmers. They also have the possibility to intervene in

the control of water abstractions.

The main mission of water managers, like authorities in charge and Irrigation Water Users

Associations (and their water managers) is water resources planning and management in their

administrative territory (irrigation scheme, aquifer, province).

The key for irrigation water management is the planning in annual cycles. The Annual Exploitation

Plan (AEP, in some areas called by a different term, or simply hydrological plan) is the main tool for

water management in an irrigation scheme, but also used on larger spatial scales (aquifer, river

basin). It defines the upper limit of the amount of water to be consumed for irrigation in a given

irrigation season for the area covered by this plan. The AEP establishes for each farm or for each

Water Management Unit (WMU, farms or groups of farms drawing from the same source of water) the

maximum amount of water (from groundwater or from channels) to be abstracted or diverted for

irrigation purposes in a given year. The amount of water established in the AEP is related directly with

the crops and the area they occupy, because the amount of irrigation water consumed per unit area

for each crop in a given environment is well known.

The AEP is developed before the beginning of each irrigation season by the corresponding water

management authority (e.g. Irrigation Water Users Association in the case of irrigation schemes or

https://siliamb.apambiente.pt/


water abstractions

| 61

aquifers), normally based on the allocation of water amounts authorised by the River-Basin

Organisation for the given year. It is agreed by and legally binding for all members of the Water Users

Associations (through voting in the general assembly). On the basis of the AEP, each farmer or

producer decides which crops to plant on which plot in the given growing season.

The identification of irrigated areas by means of EO has systematically been carried out by the

Guadiana basin authority since 1990´s up to day, with high involvement and participation of

stakeholders and users, through different organisms, such as the Government Assembly; the Users

Assembly; Reservoir Withdrawal Commission, the Exploitation Boards; the River District Water

Council and the Competent Authorities Committee.

2.2. Overall context of water resources and water use in the Guadiana

river basin

The Guadiana River has its source in the South-West of the Iberian Peninsula, flows into Portugal, in

the southern provinces of the Algarve and Alentejo and, in its lower reaches, marks part of the border

between the two countries (as illustrated in Figure 16). 83% of the basin surface lies in Spain

(covering part of the territories of the Autonomous Communities of Castilla-La Mancha, Andalusia and

Extremadura) and the remaining 17% lies in Portugal (in the regions of Algarve and Alentejo).

The basin is normally divided into three sections: the Upper Guadiana (Alto Guadiana, Spain) located

in the plains of La Mancha, reaching from its origin to the National Park “Tablas de Daimiel”, the

Middle Guadiana (Guadiana medio, Spain), and the Lower Guadiana (Spain/Portugal) from the

recently constructed Alqueva dam in Portugal to the Mediterranean sea. The predominant climate is

Mediterranean-continental, being the average rainfall of 522 mm/yr (340 mm in La Mancha plain in the

Upper Guadiana).

Figure 16: Guadiana river basin

Source: Adapted from Lopez-Francos and Lopez

Francos, 2010

Characteristics of the Guadiana River Basin:

Large hydrographical basins: it covers

66 800km2 of which 55 200km

2 (83%) are in

Spain and 11 580 km2 (17%) are in Portugal

Irregular hydrology, high variability in

precipitation and frequent dry periods

Main water use is for agriculture with a

water consumption reaching 90% of the

total water use (Spanish and Portuguese

River Basin Management Plans 2009-2015)

Great economic weight of agriculture in

Spain and Portugal. For example, in the

Spanish part: agricultural lands represent

47% of the territory of which 19% are

devoted to irrigated agriculture

Cultivations vary from region to region

Main water sources for irrigation also vary:

Upper Guadiana irrigation mainly based on

groundwater resources, Middle Guadiana

and Portugal irrigation based on surface

water

The Upper Guadiana has a prevailing groundwater regime, which makes it different from the rest of

Algarve

Alentejo

Upper

Guadia

na

Lower

Guadiana

Middle

Guadiana


water abstractions

| 62

the catchment, which is widely known for the aquifers of La Mancha. These groundwater bodies

emerge in surface wetlands creating very valuable ecosystems such as Lagunas de Ruidera (Natural

Park) and Las Tablas de Daimiel (National Park), among others, which led to the declaration of

UNESCO's Biosphere Reserve of “La Mancha Húmeda”. Some wetlands were included in the national

Ramsar list and thus they were declared as protected areas by national laws.

The rapid expansion of irrigation from groundwater since the early Seventies led to overexploitation of

the aquifer, with sinking water-table levels threatening the survival of the wetlands. Irrigated

agriculture, mainly in vineyards, is the socio-economic basis of the area. Over the years, the delicate

equilibrium or des-equilibrium between abstractions and available resources has given rise to conflicts

which have been addressed by several Plans, the latest of which is the Spanish RBMP 2009-2015, as

it is explained below.

The effectiveness of management measures, mainly based on huge abstraction restrictions, especially

in the 2006-2009 period and the 2009 to 2012 wet period, have led to an important rise of the water

table (up to 21 m). At this moment, the achievement of good quantitative status of main groundwater

bodies is close to its original state (see Figure 17).

Figure 17: Evolution of water table in Upper Guadiana aquifer.

The Middle Guadiana has a regulated hydrological regime due to the construction of several large

dams in the context of the hydraulic infrastructure reforms of Plan Badajoz, in the middle of last

century. These dams in turn have given rise to an intensive agriculture depending mostly on surface

water distributed in canal networks, regulated by the river basin authority. The management of these

dams has allowed for coping with drought periods without conflicts. The transformation of land into

new irrigated areas is still going on, encouraged by the regional government, due to its socio-

economic importance.

The Portuguese section of the Guadiana has a regulated hydrological regime due to the

construction of the Alqueva dam. The associated canal distribution networks have not yet been

finished and the irrigation transformation is still going on. The pre-existing irrigation schemes in this

area are regulated by small dams, like the one of the river Caia. Some of them are also fed by

groundwater. The Alqueva Scheme is located in southern Portugal, approximately 180 Km southeast

of Lisbon, Portugal capital. The irrigation water is diverted from the Alqueva Dam, located in Guadiana

River that forms the Alqueva reservoir. The irrigated area will comprise, in 2015, 110 000 hectares,


water abstractions

| 63

mostly under sprinkler and trickle irrigation. The autumn-winter-spring runoff is partially stored in the

Alqueva Lake, an artificial reservoir with a capacity of approximately of 4 100 hm3 that received the

flows coming part from Portugal and the other part from Spain. The volume of water is afterwards

pumped and used in the left margin of the river (±30 000 ha) and in the right margin (±80 000 ha) and

transferred to the Sado river basin. The storage and releases are controlled by the EDIA enterprise

that stores water for hydropower generation downstream.

The irrigation modernisation program carried out by the central Portuguese government has been

installing pressurised and non-pressurised systems in an area of 110 000 hectares. Using EU

structural funds it has also installed a network of agrometeorological stations for the purpose of

irrigation advisory that is being offered by the extension service COTR.

The whole Guadiana river basin counts 1 824 artificial water reservoirs or dams, the majority of which

are destined for water storage (NeWater 2005). Some of these dams date back to the Roman Age and

they are still in service. Irrigators can receive water from a water supply network managed by a Water

User Association or directly pump water from their own private wells.

In the 1980’s the depletion of the groundwater table was well known, since related wetlands

ecosystems were clearly affected by the lack of resources and abstractions seemed to far exceed

available renewable resources. The environmental damage was particularly evident in Las Tablas de

Daimiel National Park.

Besides, in the Campo de Montiel aquifer area, which is related with “Lagunas de Ruidera” lakes,

water springs disappeared and stream flows decreased, giving rise to important social conflicts.

Violent episodes took place involving groundwater farmers, people from nearby villages, surface water

farmers and environmental groups.

Some measures were applied to solve this situation:

Declarations of "Aquifer Overexploitation": This was a measure in the new 1985 Water

Law. Mancha Occidental and Campos de Montiel aquifers were declared

overexploited, and so: Abstractions were limited (water rights of 4,278 m3/has limited

to 2,000 m3/ha) and drilling of new wells was banned. There was a huge social

opposition against restrictions and Farmer Associations demanded compensation for

restrictions.

1992 Income Compensation Plan: This was one of the first agro-environmental

programs in the EU Common Agricultural Policy. Farmers were required to use less

water, abandon water-intensive crops (maize and beet) in favour of water-effective

crops. And they were compensated for income losses

2000 Plan for restructuring vineyard: The effect of this plan was an extraordinary shift

from herbaceous crops (high water-intensive crops 8.000 m3/ha) to vineyards (less than

1.500 m3/ha), and it consolidated the previous Income Compensation Plan.

As a result of these plans, there was a huge reduction of groundwater abstraction from 640 hm3/yr

(mid 80’s) to 230 hm3/yr. The quantitative status of water bodies improved significantly due to this

water table recovery. Aquifers are nowadays close to achieve the good status and environmental

damages have almost disappeared. It must be pointed out that nowhere in the world a reduction like

this because of environmental reason has occurred. Anyway, some social tension and governance

problems remained.

In all this process, since mid-80’s (first time in Europe) Earth Observation tools have been used, not

only for the control of the water level recovery, but also for other purposes that are out of the scope of

this project, such as the analysis of wetland surface evolution in the Tablas de Daimiel and the

surveillance of flooding and cultivated areas in Middle Guadiana. EO tools have been used in the


water abstractions

| 64

Guadiana basin for the recognition of water rights since 1994. The Guadiana basin was one of the

pilot basins of the research FP4 ASTIMwR project (1997-1999) where EO tools were used for

developing an application to improve water resources management. It was also one the only

transboundary pilot area (Las Vegas del Guadiana, Spain, and Caia, Portugal) in FP6 PLEIADeS

project (2006-2008) that developed operational irrigation water management tools and services.

Finally, the Guadiana Basin Authority has systematically used (up to 2010) EO tools for controlling the

exploitation regime of the declared over-exploited aquifers.

The practice in the use of EO tools in the framework of authorised water consumption assessments is

as follows:

Recognition of groundwater rights (from the Ancient Water Law – see Section

2.1): It was necessary to know which farmers were abstracting groundwater before

1985 when the new Water Law got in force, in order to register water rights from the

ancient XIXth century water Law. The only realistic possible source of this information

was from EO tools through the following process: 1) Firstly, mapping all the farms

potentially linked to an irrigation right was required, for which digital orto-photography

was elaborated As a result, a geo-database with location of wells and graphical

information of farms was obtained; 2) Secondly, real irrigated area was obtained from

EO data (infra-red colour composite satellite images); 3) Finally the geo-database of

farms and wells was compared each year (spring and summer) with real irrigated area,

so that if the farm was irrigated in this period, then it was an evidence to register, and

this resulted in proof of evidence in Court where many cases were trialled.

Evaluation of groundwater abstractions & Control of overexploitation regime in

La Mancha aquifers: For this activity, firstly the crop distribution along the aquifer of

La Mancha was obtained with the use EO methodologies (from multi-criteria analysis

using multi-spectral and multi-temporal satellite images). Then, groundwater abstraction

was evaluated by applying a quote by crop (from flow meters, agronomic models:

Penmann, Thornwaite, SIAR, etc. It was necessary to characterize the vegetative

development of crops, in order to capture all existing crops in an area (spring and

summer). Special attention had to be paid to irrigated cereal crops and irrigated

vineyard crops, which could not be identified only by conducting a multispectral and

multi-temporal analysis. This information was obtained for each parcel and checked if it

was according with limited groundwater abstraction right after the overexploitation

declaration.

Control of non-authorised water abstraction: It is necessary to differentiate two

types of non-authorised abstractions:

Wells with no permits.

Abstraction of larger volumes of water than entitled to.

The methodology to control these situations, in the Upper Guadiana River, was the use

of satellite images to obtain the irrigated surface and compare it with the farms with

administrative permit, so that all possible surfaces that irrigate without license can be

assessed. Finally, a relation of non-compliant farms and an estimation of the volume

extracted can be obtained.

This methodology results in an Early Warning tool in order to perform field inspections

(while crops are still in the field) which are necessary as definitive evidences for formal

complaints. With this methodology, thousands of reports were filed and tens of farmers

are even nowadays involved in criminal trials in court.


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Some challenges have still to be tackled from the current practices in the use of EO tools. The main

challenges for water managers related to monitoring water abstractions in this area are governance

issues because social and economic conflict still remains. Funding of these activities is a key issue as

well (EO, field inspections, procedures, etc., which are not considered as water services by the Water

Framework Directive, thus a cost-recovery mechanism for these activities is not easy to implement).

Specific and relevant challenges for the detection of non-authorised water abstraction relates legal

issues, which need be taken into account:

Not all groundwater abstractions without permit are illegal: they could be under an

authorisation process arising from the ancient law, or because of social reasons -

determined by Autonomous Government-, via an exchange in a Public Water Centre or

in a Water Market. A good management of Register of water rights and an Exchange

information system must be required.

Declaration of illegality of a non-authorised groundwater abstraction requires a complex

legal procedure: it has to be done according to a legal framework, and with all

guarantees for the potential offender. Therefore, we cannot speak about “illegality”

without omitting this necessary legal procedure. All these illegal declaration will finally

go into court, so quality of proof of evidences and legal formal issues are critical

As a general conclusion, the implementation and results of the initiative on monitoring of water

abstractions by EO, and in particular the detection of non-authorised abstractions, has been proven

highly effective and efficient (cost are not high and contributed to a successful implementation of the

general measures –which were really expensive-). However, the EO-derived tools, when used as a

proof of evidence in legal procedures, must be still completed with other ancillary legal evidences,

which make the process more expensive (i.e. field inspections).


Water resources are under pressure in some part of the river basin and ensuring compliance with

water rights represents therefore a real challenge for water managers.

Up-to-date information about the extent of non-authorised abstractions is difficult to come by. The

most frequently cited reference is a WWF report published in 2006, stating that:

“In the Upper Guadiana river basin, according to the Ministry for the Environment there

were around 22,000 illegal wells in contrast with 16,000 authorised ones in 2006”

(WWF, 2006).

“Series of inspections carried out in 2005 on 70 of irrigation farm in aquifer 23 revealed

that abstractions were being made of 54,1 hm3 above the amount authorised by the

river basin authority that year” (WWF, 2006).

More recently, we still find that “Illegal water abstraction in the Tablas de Daimiel National park

accounts for 10% of volume of groundwater consumed for cereal irrigation and around 30% for vine

and vegetables” (Dumont et al., 2011). However, these publications fail to take into account the

specific transition regime of water rights in Spain (from the old Water Act of 1879, where groundwater

use was private, to the new Water Act of 1985, where all water is public), see previous section. Along

with the review and registry of abstraction points (ALBERCA project) over the years a lot of effort has

been devoted to improve and implement effective aquifer monitoring and control mechanisms and a

process of legalisation has been conducted, largely with the help of EO (Calera et al. 2010). The

instrument of exchange of water rights via the Centre of Exchange of Rights (Upper Guadiana Special


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Plan) has raised all potential illegality in the area (around 40 hm3), which will participate either in the

reallocation of rights from this Centre (14 hm3) or in the cession of private rights contracts (26 hm

3),

provided that the equilibrium of abstractions is guaranteed (River Basin Authority Information Source).


the existence of a water right to abstract water (case A in Figure 18); and

the compliance of water abstractions with this water right, i.e. verifying that volumes of

water abstracted do not exceed authorised amounts or that they comply with e.g.



information or database on irrigable areas (i.e. areas with a right to irrigate). In the second case, water

consumption needs to be monitored and cross-checked with the authorised abstraction amount.

Figure 18 recapitulates all the steps that are necessary for the detection of non-authorised water

abstractions as well as the available tools/data that are used or could be used within the Water User

Association area to detect illegal abstractions. For each type of non-authorised abstractions, if any of

the three first steps is not met, the competent authority in charge of water abstraction monitoring will

not be able to conclude whether there is a case of illegal abstraction.


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Approaches for the detection of non-authorised water

abstractions

Available tools within the area

Defining the type of non-authorised abstraction to be identified 1

A. Absence of water rights B. Exceedance of authorised amount

s

Identification of irrigated areas through field inspections, land-use maps,

cadastral maps or Earth Observation-derived information (NDVI) supported

with ground truth

Identification of existing wells or surface water derivation through field

inspections, patrols or using orthophotos, record of registered wells

Cadastral and land-use maps

Identifying the areas of interest: irrigated areas or abstraction points 2

Patrols along the river in order to monitor and

prevent the extraction and derivation of water

(Water Users Associations, Confederación

Hidrográfíca and SEPRONA in Spain)

Earth Observation data

Verifying the existence of a water

right for the specific location of the

identified irrigated area, well or

surface water deviation point that

has been identified

Estimating water consumption

through field inspection and in-situ

metering or according to

operational hours and delivery flow

or using Earth Observation-derived


evapotranspiration)

Verifying that volumes of water

abstracted at the specific

abstraction point comply with the

authorised amount

Field inspections organised by regional

authorities and water user associations

Referring to a registry of water

rights that indicates the specific

spatial location of the intended

irrigated land

Referring to the Annual Exploitation

Plan that indicates the specific

spatial location of the abstraction

point and the authorised amount of

water abstraction

Concession rights are granted for a given

abstraction point and corresponding irrigated

land both of which must be indicated on an

official cadastral map

The water user must indicate also the amount

of water intended to be used.

Referring to registry of water rights and/or Annual Exploitation Plan 3

Verifying compliance of water use with water rights 4

Obligation for water users to install metering

devices and declare their water consumption

annually


tools within the basin

The special plan for the Upper Guadiana

River basin provides for the use of GSM

water meters and satellite data for water

abstraction surveillance


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2.4. Identified challenges and water managers’ needs for the

detection of non-authorised abstractions

Despite all the tools available and efforts made by the regional authorities and the Water Users

Associations, technical, economic and governance issues make it difficult to have a clear vision of

non-authorised water abstraction. Several challenges for water managers have been identified.


As shown in Figure 18, having an updated record of water rights and land use cover map is essential

for the detection of illegal water abstractions for both non-authorised abstraction types.

Although different initiatives have been implemented in order to update inventories of wells to keep

track of ownership and characteristics of every well in the country such as: the initiatives White Book

of groundwater, ARYCA, ALBERCA (well owners must join either the “Public Water Registry” or the

“Catalogue of Private Waters”), the total number of wells in the Guadiana river basin is not accurately

known at the moment (Fornés et al., 2007).


Controlling every abstraction site and point of use within the river basin is a necessary step in order to

assess water consumption (step 4, case B in Figure 18) and can be a difficult task.

in some part of the river basin, many legal wells lack metering devices making the

estimation of how much water is currently pumped from the aquifer and thus the

implementation of the River Basin Management plan more difficult.

field visits are regularly required for every abstraction sites (ideally two or three visits

within an irrigation period) which can be hard to achieve considering the number of

water meters in the region.

the procedure requires field technicians to have access to the metering devices and

thus very often necessitates the presence of the owner (except for GSM devices for

which measurements can be done at distance). For the procedure to be efficient, a

large number of field technicians are required (generates costs) and field inspections

must be planned so that the owner is present when technicians visit an abstraction site.

given the difficulty to plan regular visits for each abstraction site, the approach used

today is to select randomly the abstraction site to be visited. This procedure raises

criticism about inspection bias: ‘why my farm is visited by inspection and not another

farm?’ The weakness of the controlling system within the river basin is mainly due to a

lack of human and financial resources making the visit of all abstraction sites more

difficult.

Volumetric metering can be a powerful tool if and only if properly implemented. This implementation

would need to be pushed with sufficient force by local or national governments, but real-world

experiences of forcing volumetric metering without cooperation of end users show the failure of this

approach. Only with a complete set of water meters on all sources of water, well maintained and well

operated, it could be feasible to perform an adequate monitoring and control, but usually such a

system is not available and technically (installation, maintenance and direct measurement) very

complex and costly. Moreover its good performance requires profound legal changes about private

property rights (access to metering device for WUA field technician), mainly in the case of areas where

irrigation is based on groundwater.


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3. How Earth Observation could meet your needs to address illegal water

abstraction

3.1. Opportunities related to the use of Earth observation by water

managers

Earth observation (EO) can provide, together with other, non-EO data, a set of products and services

that support the compliance with and/or enforcement of the Annual Exploitations Plan (AEP).

Moreover, EO-assisted products and services can also foster the required collaboration between all

users and to make the enforcement process transparent.

The detection of irrigation of land without irrigation rights is facilitated by means of EO-derived maps of

irrigated areas. Classification maps using this procedure have been accepted as evidence, e.g., in the

Supreme Court of Spain. Field inspection alone cannot cover large areas. Without images the only

approach is a random selection, which either requires a huge amount of resources-intensive field work

or (and still) leads to undersampling and underestimating of non-compliant farms, thus facilitating

over-exploitation and illegal abstractions.

The detection of over-irrigation (beyond the legally conceded volume) is equally facilitated by EO.

Measuring irrigation water consumption of plots by means of EO time series has been demonstrated

to be superior to the traditional approach of volumetric metering (Garrido et al. 2014). Dense EO time

series can provide accurate crop water requirements at pixel scale, according EO state of art, and by

applying a soil water balance we can determine irrigation water requirements.

Experience indicates that, for large areas, the EO approach is a system at least as efficient for

monitoring the AEP as is volumetric metering. EO products provide the same precision as a set of

water meters, while being cheaper by several orders of magnitude. A combination of both systems,

space-based and some volumetric metering (for ground truthing), would provide a realistic and

feasible alternative. Evapotranspiration (ET) and irrigation water requirements (IWR) need to be

provided for each plot during the whole growing cycle. Although the EO-based IWR is not a direct

measurement of water applied, it is directly related with it through the efficiency of the irrigation

system. Therefore, the EO-based IWR provides a valuable metering (in the sense of water

accounting) of the irrigation water applied.

3.2. Experience from implementation of EO in other river basins and

at national level

EO has been used in the majority of Spanish and Portuguese river-basins for many years. We present

here a brief overview of the most important cases (for the size of the area covered).

The use of EO for monitoring the irrigated areas has been important in the Upper Guadiana from the

early phase of its operational use. Recently a comprehensive control has been accomplished for the

years 2008-2011, identifying the irrigated surfaces and estimating crop water consumption for each

parcel (Calera et al., 2009, 2011). At the same time extensive experience has been gained in the use

of volume meters. The assessment by one of the former presidents of the Spanish Guadiana river

basin authority, Díaz Mora (1995), concludes that “…the direct measurement using flow meters has

proven to be useful. However, any system for controlling groundwater extractions cannot be based

only on them.” He proposes a three-component hybrid system, covering flow meters managed by the

irrigators themselves, EO, and piezometers.

In the Jucar River District, EO has been used to regularise water uses. Nowadays, water abstraction

control is being implemented through indirect methods, as well as through a global estimation of


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abstractions in the aquifer. The current practice in the use of EO focuses on indirect control of water

abstractions based on theoretical crop consumption. Total consumption of the exploitation is

calculated as a product of the theoretical average consumptions per hectare of crops implemented on

the surface of each crop in the relevant period. To this end, a previous characterisation of water uses

is needed, both graphically and administratively. On these characterisations, the owners declare the

crops to be grown during a particular period and those declarations are cross-referenced with EO-

derived images. This methodology allows to compare the declarations and to estimate the global

volume of water abstracted. In order for the process to be efficient, it is essential to previously

characterise water uses, both administratively and graphically. The experience has also showed that it

is fundamental to have the previous declaration of the owner.

On the basis above, the WUA “Junta Central de Regantes La-Mancha Oriental (JCRMO)”, in the

upper Júcar river has successfully been operating for many years a system of water management

based on the identification of crops with similar water requirements by means of a sequence of EO

images and subsequent assignation of water volumes per class (multi-annual averages also

supported by agronomic knowledge base). Beyond this multiannual average, EO-based products

developed in SIRIUS can provide actual irrigation water requirements for each plot during the whole

growing cycle. This service has been implemented at the Junta Central de Regantes La-Mancha

Oriental. A demonstration is available online44

.

The Ebro basin, located in NE Spain, is one of the most intensively irrigated river basins in Europe.

The Autonomous Region of Aragón is located in the middle Ebro basin. In Aragón the irrigated surface

area is about 3950 km2 and the irrigation water comes mainly from surface resources, the Pyrenees

and the Iberian mountains. In the irrigated lands, climate is semiarid or arid with strong interannual

precipitation variability. The water sources largely depend on snowmelt and fall and winter

precipitation. The temporal variability of water availability is high and determines the crops production.

Tools for support decision-making, planning and management in hydrographic basins and irrigated

areas are required by the Water Basin Authority (Confederación Hidrográfica del Ebro, CHE) and

Irrigation districts managers which see in Earth Observation (EO) an important data source to improve

water management. In response to this request, the Irrigation, Agronomy and the Environment

research group (RAMA) integrated by researchers from two public research institutions, CSIC

(Spanish Council for Scientific Research) and CITA (Agrifood Research and Technology Centre of

Aragón) has developed some applications based on remote sensing techniques:

Irrivol, a method to predict, estimate and map irrigation water volumes by using ground

information, meteorological data and satellite images;

Assessment of Water Irrigation Use based on performance indicators derived from

ADOR database (a software for water management at district level), cropping pattern

and actual crop evapotranspiration derived from satellite images;

Irrigation Water Management Support-Tool based on water demand prediction obtained

from satellite data (Crop-Development-Water demand relationship using crop maps and

vegetation indices at real time) and water availability information (stored volumes,

current flows, time series models and information about booking snow).

These applications have been tested and implemented in the two largest Irrigation districts of Spain,

Comunidad General de Riegos del Alto Aragón (Irrigated area of 1,250 km2) and Comunidad General

de Regantes del Canal de Aragón y Cataluña (Irrigated area of 1,050 km2).

44 http://zeus.idr-ab.uclm.es/publico/webgis/


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The Duero River Basin Authority and the ITACyL (Castilla y León Agricultural Technology Institute)

have used remote sensing technologies for the following tasks:

Development of River Basin Management Plan (2009):

To perform the characterisation of agricultural demand units for incorporation into the River Basin

Management Plan using satellite imagery of 2008 and 2009 years. It was based on Landsat 5 TM,

with images from March to September 2009, and SPOT 5 as the support in areas with clouds. The

results were used to contrast the reality with concession information available to the basin authority in

their records.

Work monitoring abstraction irrigation crops in the years 2010 to 2013:

The irrigated areas and theoretical irrigation crops abstraction has been monitored using Landsat 5

TM images, in 2011 and 2012, and Deimos-1 in 2013. This information helps to identify on illegal

abstractions and over abstractions. They have also served to establish rules for giving new allocations

in poor status groundwater bodies.

Decision making in the administrative work of the basin authority:

To recognise historical water rights, news concessions and its modifications to adapt to the RBMP.

On the national level in Spain, drought indexes are implemented in drought mitigation systems to

derive information about the hydrological status in a territory. They bring together hydrometeorological

information to derive a characterisation of a drought state. So, mitigation or prevention strategies can

be adopted. Drought mitigation plans propose a compilation of drought indexes and a collation of

activities to react and minimise drought impact on water uses and environment. Considering that, they

are useful tools to mitigate droughts. Current practice in deriving a drought index is based on using

different bands of EO in order to remark the contrast existing in reflectance when water availability for

vegetation changes. Some examples of indexes used are the Normalised Drought Index taken from

MODIS bands or its adaptation to MERIS information considering data availability in Spain. According

to recent research from CEDEX, drought indices derived from EO are easily managed and permit to

manage the whole Spanish territory with reduced costs at least with spatial resolution used (1.000 m).

The Spanish Deputy Directorate-General for Irrigation and Water Economy of the Ministry of

Agriculture, Food and Environment has collaborated with University of Castilla-La Mancha (the

coordinator of EU Sirius Project) to develop SPIDER using the Earth Observation in combination with

the data of the Agroclimatic Information Service for Irrigation (that counts with more than 400

automatic stations situated in irrigation areas http://eportal.magrama.gob.es/websiar/Inicio.aspx )

during years 2010-2011. The main goals of the developed experience, so called SPIDER-CENTER,

were mapping irrigated surfaces and estimating irrigation water requirements of the irrigated crops in

this area. It was decided to assess the SIRIUS toolset by applying it in a large area of Spain, where

there are very different climatic conditions and crop types. The area covered has been the Tagus,

Guadiana, Júcar and Segura river basins, the Sierra Filabres-Estancias and Gador-Filabres systems

(Mediterranean river basins in Andalusia). This is a surface area of 1.200.000 ha (36% of total

irrigation surface in Spain).), with spatial focus on 1790 irrigation schemes distributed along the study

area. All generated information by the project SPIDER-CENTER is available to water managers and

farmers via web without the need of installing specific software (http://zeus.idr-

ab.uclm.es/publico/indexSPIDERCenter.html?zone=386; Login: demo; Password: demo).

In Portugal, Earth Observation has not been used to monitor water abstraction and to detect non-

authorised abstractions.

However, it should be noted that the Algarve regional water authority (ARH Algarve) uses

orthophotomaps namely to obtain information on land use/cover. Regarding agriculture, land cover is

use to estimate crop water demands.

http://eportal.magrama.gob.es/websiar/Inicio.aspx

http://zeus.idr-ab.uclm.es/publico/indexSPIDERCenter.html?zone=386

http://zeus.idr-ab.uclm.es/publico/indexSPIDERCenter.html?zone=386


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Nevertheless, there are some EO relevant projects in the scope of water resources management,

namely linked with support systems for irrigation management (e.g. Aquapath-Soil Project -

http://www.agro-evapo.eu/), desertification susceptibility evaluation and riparian buffers evaluation.

Several institutions are responsible for these projects, such as administration, universities and

irrigation users associations.

It should be note that, in Portugal, the existing systems to support irrigation management are mainly

base on irrigation warning systems or on soil moisture sensors/probes. Concerning irrigation warning

systems, they take into account weather conditions and evapotranspiration evaluation, e.g. those

performed by Operative Centre for Irrigation Technology, COTR, for Alentejo, Algarve and part of

Ribatejo regions.

The absence of initiatives on Earth Observation to monitor water abstraction is linked with several

factors, which can be overcome with the collaboration and assistance performed by the European

Commission, being the APA I.P. available to participate in case studies in Portugal, such as on

Guadiana and Xarrama river basins on the Alentejo river basin district, and on Algarve river basin

district.

The conclusions from these experiences are included in section 3.5.


For this technology to be operational for the detection of non-authorised water abstractions, the

following data are required:

dense time series of high resolution imagery; Landsat8, DeIMOS and, ideally,

SENTINEL2 covering crop growing season;

agrometeorological station network;

cadastral limits of plot with water rights;

ancillary information about main crops phenology and development;

existing land use/land cover maps.

This service requires bi-weekly to monthly EO images from a high-resolution (HR) Virtual Constellation

(multi-sensor time series at 10-30m resolution), plus the following non-EO data:

vector maps of farms and water management units (e.g., from WUA exploitation plan;

rural cadastre; orthophoto; public maps) for the purpose of verifying AEP compliance;

daily agrometeorological station and rain gauge data for the calculation of crop water

consumption;

flow meter data in selected locations for ground truthing of crop water consumption.

Ideally, these data need to be integrated in a webGIS in order to provide a tool for stakeholder

participation, collaboration and transparent governance.

The cost of implementing and running such a service has been estimated at the order of 60-100,000

EUR per year for an irrigated area of 50-100,000 ha, spatially distributed on the field of view of a

typical Landsat scene (180x180 km) (depending on image overpass location).

http://www.agro-evapo.eu/


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The following steps and corresponding technical capacity are needed in order to provide this service

to users:

1. Data repository and web-GIS-based DSS ;

2. EO image data procurement;

3. Non-EO data procurement;

4. Operational production line for processing and generation of products;

5. Quality control of products ;

6. Delivery of products to users (online via webGIS, email, paper, media);

7. Dialogue with users.

As an example, in the SIRIUS project the above sequence has been implemented as follows:

Step 1 has been implemented in pilot areas in a centralised way by UCLM hosting a

global webGIS, offering either fully global navigation within and between pilot areas in

its “global” access configuration (maintained and fed by UCLM centrally) or individual

pilot area access in its local configuration (each limited to its wider pilot area territory),

administrated and fed by each pilot area Service Provider.

Step 2 can be a combination of centralised (in view of potential Copernicus services)

and local procurement.

Data for step 3 will always come from local procurement.

Two different service models for step 4 have been implemented and tested during

SIRIUS, based on a centralised and a de-centralised processing and production line,

respectively. The best strategy here depends on image source and local processing

capabilities.

Step 5 goes through several levels of quality control, some included in the central

production line and some confined to the local level.

Step 6 consists of uploading products to a webGIS and (optionally) providing output by

email, SMS, or printout. This is a task of the Local Service Providers.

Step 7 is one of the key tasks of the Local Service Providers.

3.4. Existing enabling environment


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Table 6 specifies, for the example of SIRIUS, for each step as described above who (which

company/organisation) has the required operative capacity and where the source of the required

operational data procurement is. An important concept here is “Core User uptake capability”, defined

as the capability of the user to plug the EO Services into their existing operational routines. This

requires both some technical capacity (e.g., GIS) and some previous experience with and/or

exposition to EO-based concepts.

Similar tables can be generated for the other services mentioned above, thus all in all demonstrating a

wide coverage and high level of operative capacity.


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Table 6: Details of operative capacity for each element of EO Service provision line for Spain and

Portugal, example of SIRIUS.

Element of Service

provision line

Who has operative capacity to

provide /

Source of data procurement

Current status in Spain and

Portugal

SPIDER family UCLM and spin-off

System operational in over 10

different projects

EO data procurement Spanish National Remote

Sensing Plan

provides yearly coverage of

national territory in Spain

Landsat Fully operational; high-quality; free

Sentinel coming (expected to be free)

Rest of multi-sensor constellation Mostly fully operational; high cost

Vector data

procurement

Local Water User Associations mostly available;

may need digitalisation (including

validation field work)

Rural cadastre available

LPIS SIGPAC (Spain)

Agro-meteorological

data procurement

National or local station networks Operational access available;

SIAR network in Spain

In case of need: new installation,

to be maintained by LSP

Installation cost 2-3kEUR; some

instrumentation skills

Production line for

processing and

generation of products

Centralised: Astrium UK Operational production line (NDVI

& RGB colour composite)

demonstrated in SIRIUS

Local: Network of Local Service

Providers (UCLM & spin-off

leading the way)

Operational (including all additional

products) at UCLM/spin-off, others

can be trained

Quality control of

products

Centralised: Astrium UK;

local: Network of Local Service

Providers (UCLM & spin-off

leading the way)

same as in production line


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Element of Service

provision line

Who has operative capacity to

provide /

Source of data procurement

Current status in Spain and

Portugal

Delivery of products to

users

(upload to webGIS;

further communication

channels)

Network of Local Service

Providers

Years of operational experience at

some LSPs, others in learning

process

Dialogue with users Network of Local Service

Providers

long standing record and excellent

collaborative relationship in some

areas (within and beyond pilot

areas), growing in others (through

active process, facilitated by

SPIDER)

Note: Partly similar capacities are available in other examples throughout Spain and Portugal (see

section 3.2 above).

3.5. Synthesis of assets and shortcomings of the use of EO, including

MS-wide applicability

Given their long standing record in the use of EO for water and land monitoring purposes, both Spain

and Portugal are in optimum conditions to benefit from all possible opportunities that EO offers for the

monitoring and control of irrigation water abstractions. These are:

large geographical coverage at adequate spatial and temporal resolution;

good accuracy;

vastly increased efficiency of surveillance and inspection;

objective assessment tool and trusted by water users as such;

additional development of land-use datasets through LPIS;

vastly reduced monitoring cost and needs for human resources;

acceptance by users and demonstrated high interest of representatives of water

authorities;

consideration as legal evidence in cases up to Supreme Court (in Spain).

extended and long-standing EO capabilities and expertise is available and numerous

pilots as well as first operational implementation of EO for monitoring and control of

water abstractions have been successfully accomplished.

rural cadastral databases are available where needed.


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Barriers identified in general could mostly be overcome, as follows:

the reliance on cloud conditions can be alleviated by using a multi-sensor constellation

of satellites combined with a multi-annual agronomic knowledge base (available in most

important irrigated areas in both countries).

area with small cultivated parcels can be covered with higher resolution images

(Sentinel-2 will allow for resolving 0.3 ha, several commercial satellites provide even

much higher resolution).

difficulty discriminating non-irrigated areas with irrigated areas of winter crops,

especially in years with a rainy spring, as well as of some perennial crops can be

overcome by using additional information from agro-met stations, soil moisture balance,

annual crop declarations (CAP), maps of land use, flow meters, etc.

The most essential remaining barrier is full recognition of EO as legal evidence and its full anchoring in

national policy.

Areas for application can be grouped into 3 classes:

regions with irrigation essentially fed by ground-water (by far the most important class

here); these are the most difficult to control, essentially due to the large number of

individual farm holdings (i.e. abstraction points) which are very often not part of any

irrigation users community;

regions with surface-water-fed irrigation; these are easier to control, because each

surface irrigation scheme is managed by an irrigation users community which is in

charge of hydrological planning and keeping records of abstractions at least at the

major channel network distribution points;

regions with mixed irrigation sources; these exhibit characteristics of both.

The general conclusions of the workshop held in Madrid on 17 February 2014 show that

COPERNICUS (pan-European, national) is relevant for the detection of non-authorised abstractions,

but also for water management and governance in general, for the following reasons:

standardisation of products and homogenisation of methodology are needed (many

water authorities have been using EO without a common background, interoperability

and integration with land-use Systems like SIOSE and CORINE is required to make

activities effective and efficient);

strengths and weaknesses of EO services for identification of irrigated areas and

estimation of water consumption correspond to those listed above;

local post-processing is required in order to adapt the products and services to regional

and local needs, also by integrating all ancillary data and information (cadastre, water

rights);

legal sanctioning based on EO alone is difficult, but EO maps can direct field inspection

to critical points and provide contextual information (time records and/or maps of

surroundings). EO plus field inspection testimony is the solution;

the EO techniques allow comparison of points where water is consumed with authorised

points, but don’t always allow to identify the point of abstraction. Additional field

inspection is necessary to confirm;

EO images are a good tool to support RBMPs and water accounts. They need

additional tools for the daily management of the RB;


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shared EO tools by water users and water and agricultural authorities can help improve

water management;

financing for EO-based services to control abstractions should come from public

sources (EU, LIFE, rural development funds), because it is a service for all;

financing for EO-based water management should come from the users and entities in

charge of management (public administration, irrigation users communities).

The following statements were expressed by the Deputy Directorate-General for Irrigation and Water

Economy of the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment:

“Climatic information combined with Earth Observation Systems is useful to improve irrigation water

management by users and Administrations and to better irrigation and hydrological planning. SPIDER-

CENTER experience has had relevant results related to:

increase water irrigation efficiency;

rational use of water resources;

monitoring use of water (by Irrigators Communities and individual irrigators);

enforcement of water laws, Water Framework Directive;

sustainability.

Everybody can access to SPIDER Project GIS in the website given in section 3.2 above (it is a Web-

based GIS that doesn’t need to install any software in the client PC and offers the main functionalities

of a GIS).

As a final remark we would like to emphasise our compromise to continue improving water efficiency

in irrigation using Earth Observation tools, as we have included it as part of the programme of work of

Agroclimatic Information Service for Irrigation 2014-2016.”

The following statements were expressed by the Portuguese Environment Agency:

“We consider positive to have tools to improve water resources management and the control of water

uses. It would also be challenging (e.g. in the Alentejo region) to have tools to manage water users

conflicts, taking into account water abstraction upstream of assigned “water resource use permits”.

The evaluation of global amount of groundwater and surface water abstracted by agriculture is also

important. Nevertheless, that evaluation may require data that are not easy to collect, especially in

more complex areas, having different crops, irrigation technologies (and irrigation efficiencies) and

water sources. The Alentejo and Algarve regional water authorities, currently integrated in APA, I.P.,

are interested on case studies aiming improving of water resources management and the control of

water uses. The Alentejo regional water authority (ARH Alentejo) is available to participate in studies

in the Guadiana river basin district, shared with Spain, or in the Sado-Mira river basin district, in the

Xarrama sub-basin of Sado basin. The Algarve regional water authority (ARH Algarve) is willing to

participate in studies comprising the Algarve river basin district. In other perspective, studies to

support irrigation management aiming at improving the efficiency of irrigation would also be positive. In

this case, the involvement of irrigation users associations or agriculture associations is required.”


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The following statements were expressed by the Hydrological Planning Office of the Guadiana River

Basin Authority.

“Based on this experience, the main assets and shortcomings of the use of EO to detect non-

authorised water abstractions are:

availability of data. Copernicus must offer free quality images.

multi-spectral and multi-temporal satellite images analysis, could be offered centralised

(defining accuracy and uncertainties). Multispectral and multi-temporal analyses need a

territorial segmentation where extracted variables are extrapolated.

an additional multi-criteria analysis is necessary to obtain truthful information that can

be used in administrative procedures and judicial processes. This Multi-criteria analysis

needs other data sources outside remote sensing which would be developed at local

scale: Well location, farms with water abstraction permits (plots’ layers), historical

exploitation, agricultural practices in the area, field activities to identify crops, definition

of quotas per crop, etc. (different methodologies required for different River Basins)

all treatment of EO evidences must take into account the future use of them: planning

information, ordinary groundwater management, control of non-authorised abstraction in

order to denounce or to go on a trial.

financing of implementation of these activities (not considered in WFD) is a key issue to

solve.

EO could be a powerful data source to improve management, but does not generate

operatives’ products that can be applied directly to an effective reduction of water

abstraction or non-authorised water abstraction control. However, its characteristics

make it a primary tool to address a better water resources management. »


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Annex 2: Status of non-authorised

abstractions in the EU

The status of non-authorised abstraction varies across the EU: most Member States (MS) are aware

of this issue but have difficulties in clearly identifying and tackling it, especially in countries where the

regularisation of water rights is still at its infancy. Based on different personal communications carried

out during the study with the representatives of different MS, the issue of compliance with water rights

appears particularly sensitive politically. With the exception of a few regions that specifically work on

reducing water abstraction through better compliance with the regulation (e.g. Guadiana region in

Spain), the priority is rather placed on identifying and monitoring abstractions to have a better picture

of the overall water requirements, than on ensuring compliance with water rights. In Europe, Southern

Member States are generally pointed to when mentioning non-authorised abstractions, which is partly

linked to the fact that they are experiencing water stress and that irrigation contributes to a very high

share of water use in these countries (up to over 80%). In Italy, for example, non-registered irrigation

activities may account for up to 20% of Italy’s total water abstraction45

and Spain was historically taken

as an example of a country with numerous cases of water abstractions managed with no public

control, although the situation now seems to be progressively regularised. Central and Eastern

European Member States seem mostly concerned about developing irrigation capacity and access in

a sustainable way, rather than focusing on compliance with water rights, often in their infancy. The

question can however raise attention in hotspot areas, where conflicting water use and water scarcity

threaten the sustainability of socio-economic activities. In Slovenia, for instance, a specific study was

carried out in the Vipava valley where suspicions of non-authorised abstractions were particularly high,

but this remained an isolated initiative in the country. The collected information on illegal abstraction

for each Member State is detailed in Table 7.

45www.globalwaterintel.com/archive/10/5/general/truth-behind-italys-illegal-abstraction.html#sthash.JiNQAtbt.dpuf

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Table 7: Non-authorised water abstraction within Member States (selected following available

information)

Member States Level of non-authorised abstraction

Bulgaria No data on illegal water abstraction46

Cyprus 50 000 illegal bore-holes in 2008. Level of abstraction around 130 mill. m3/yr vs.

the recommended 80 million m3/yr.

Czech Republic

(Confidential47

)

Water authorities have great difficulties to deal with excessive withdrawals of

water for irrigation purposes in the South Morovia, Dyjákovice, Pavlovice,

Northwest Czechia, Raakovnicko, Mid-Czechia regions.

Greece

Greece still faces serious water challenges, in particular in terms of its

agricultural water use, which represents about 85% of overall abstraction.

Excessive pumping of groundwater has caused water levels to fall dramatically

in some rural areas, as well as salt water intrusion in some coastal aquifers.

Illegal abstractions and discharges pose a hurdle to improving water

management. Enforcement of regulations and water permit conditions has not

sufficiently improved. Agricultural water prices neither cover the cost of supply

nor provide sufficient conservation incentives. Little attention has been paid so

far to ecological aspects of water quality.

Hungary No data on illegal water abstraction48

Italy

The estimates are of about 1.5 million illegal wells (Contratto Mondiale

dell’Acqua).

In eight regions (Abruzzo, Molise, Puglia, Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, Sicilia

and Sardegna), about 830 000 ha are irrigated legally while the total of irrigated

area reaches about 1.6 million ha. In the Puglia region alone, 300 000 illegal

wells are estimated, which provide for one third of the total irrigated area in that

region in 2005.

Illegal abstraction volumes tend to range between 12% and 20% of total

abstraction49

. More frequent droughts and increasing salinisation are making the

problem worse, but more intensive action by the forestry police in recent years

has had an impact on these illegal activities. Fines of more than €1 million and

criminal proceedings against more than 400 people are the result of nearly 44

46 Petya Balieva, Ministry of Environment and Water, Bulgaria, personal communication

47 This information is confidential – for internal use only.

48 Agnes Tahy and Miklos Szalay, National Institute for Environment, Hungary, personal communication

49/www.globalwaterintel.com/archive/10/5/general/truth-behind-italys-illegal-

abstraction.html#sthash.JiNQAtbt.dpuf




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000 checks on freshwater-related activities carried out by the Italian forestry

police (Corpo Forestale dello Stato) in 2008.

Malta

According to Resources Ministry, current abstraction level of groundwater is

around 30 million m3/year, 7 million m

3/year more than the sustainable yield.

According to the Water Services Corporation “legal” water abstraction in 2007

was of 15 million m3, while illegal abstraction was 18.5 million m

3.

Portugal

Non-authorised abstraction is a major problem in Portugal, not only in the

agricultural sector but also in other uses. At this moment, farmers in Portugal are

doing a great effort to legalize water abstractions existing before the year 2007.

Farmer’s organizations are working together with the official authorities to

legalize these non-authorised abstractions until the end of 2014.

In 2007, in the Algarve river basin district, according to the river basin

management plan, the amount of water abstracted from groundwater bodies

should have been 71,5 hm3. However, based on orthophotomaps of the region,

the amount of groundwater abstracted was estimated at 126,72 hm3.50

The same year, the orthophotomaps enabled the detection of 4000 small dams

whereas only 1000 were licensed at that time.

In the Alentejo River Basin District only 1/3 of water abstraction (both from

surface water and groundwater) are thought to have water use titles.

Romania No known illegal abstraction51

Slovenia

No data on illegal water abstraction52

at the national level, but a specific study

was conducted in the Vipava valley where suspicions of non-authorised

abstractions were particularly high (results expected soon).

Spain

The most frequently cited reference about the extent of unauthorised water

abstractions is the 2006 report on Illegal water use in Spain prepared by WWF,

which describes the situation in 2006 as 22,000 illegal wells in contrast with

16,000 authorised ones.

However, this report does not take into account the fact that Spain is in a

transition phase after entry into force of the new water legislation of 1985.

According to the old law, groundwater was private property, whereas in the new

law all water resources are considered public domain. This means that most of

50 Sofia Batista, oprtugues Environment Agency, Water Resources Department, personal communication

51 Elena Tuchiu, National Administration "Apele Romane", personal communication

52 Jana Meljo, Institute for water of the Republic of Slovenia (IZVRS), personal communication


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these abstractions are not considered illegal, but “a-legal”, i.e. in need to be

adapted to the new legislation. Approximately 43% of private abstractions still

need to be registered.

According to the National Ministry of Agriculture, unauthorised abstractions

would amount to about 5% of total water abstractions at the national scale.

In Castilla La Mancha, about 672 wells would be considered a-legal, but a large

number of them are in the process of adapting to the new legislative situation (70

to 80% of them). Same for the Upper Guadiana River Basin, where series of

inspections were carried out in 2005 on 70 % of irrigated farms that revealed that

abstractions were being made of 54,1 hm3 above the amount authorised by the

river basin authority that year (170 hm3).

Source: Update of the work from (Dworak, T., Schmidt, G., de Stephano, L., Palacis, E. and Berglund,

M., 2010. Background paper to the conference: Application of the EU water-related Policies at farm

level, 28-29 September 2010, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.), personal communication Carlos Escartín

(2014)


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Annex 3: Details of EO-based

methods to monitor abstractions

1. Overview

This Annex describes in detail the EO-based methodology used to monitor abstractions summarized

in Step 2. Earth observation (EO) can supply maps of irrigated areas as well as time series of maps of

irrigation water consumption and abstracted water volumes. Both can be obtained from the same

source data and following the same initial processing steps, as shown in Figure 19 and Figure 20.

Figure 19: Overview of steps in using EO for detecting non-authorised abstractions

Note: Crop Water Requirements (CRW) can be obtained either directly from visible and near-infrared

(NIR) bands (left strand*) or through the surface energy balance from additional thermal bands (right

hand strand**).


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The variation of water storage determine the irrigation requirements

Maps ofET/CWR* or ET/CWR**

Derived from the water balance. A simple approach (one layer model) is described in the FAO-56 manual.

Maps of Capillarity rise (estimated)

Maps ofRun-off (estimated)

Maps ofDeep percolation

Net irrigation water requirements

Maps ofPrecipitation

Precipitation data from

agrostations

Spatially distributedSoil Water Balance

I=ET+DP-Pp-RO-?S

Maps of variation in water storage in the soil

Water consumed at irrigation scheme

Water abstraction/Water demand

Uncertainties:-Precision of the LU/LC map-Efficiencies of the irrigation systems

Uncertainties:Efficiencies of the distribution/storage systems

Uncertainties:-Precision of soil maps(soil depth and hydraulic properties)-Knowledge of irrigation strategies (deficit irrigation?)

Figure 20: Overview of processing steps from crop water requirements (CWR) to water

abstraction

Figure 19 shows on the left hand side the pathway of processing EO images in the visible and NIR

spectral range into time series of reflectance, vegetation indices (VI) and colour composite maps. VI

maps (in particular the NDVI, Normalized Differential Vegetation Index) are the basis products for the

derivation of land-use/land-cover maps (for the identification of irrigated areas) and for the derivation

of crop coefficient maps. From the latter, maps of crop water requirements can be calculated using

further input data from agrometeorological stations, which in subsequent steps (which rely mainly on

the soil water balance in the root layer) lead to estimates of abstracted water (Figure 20). The soil

water balance brings here a large body of agronomy scientific-technic knowledge. Some linked

uncertainties to this procedure are mentioned in Figure 20. Crop water requirements can also be

obtained from a combination of all EO satellite bands, including the thermal, by using a surface-

energy-balance (SEB) based approach as shown on the right hand side of Figure 19. The Kc-VI

methods provide a daily estimate, while the SEB-based methods give an instantaneous value of

evapotranspiration. Translating this into the required daily or weekly estimate may introduce large

errors difficult to quantify (Glenn et al. 2011).

The detection of non-authorised abstractions of the first type (irrigated areas) requires land-use/land-

cover maps that allow distinguishing irrigated crops. This is accomplished by multi-temporal

classification on the basis of a time series of EO images (see sections below for details of this

processing). The temporal resolution required by water managers and commissaries for this purpose

is to have a fairly cloud-free image (<10% cloud) every 2-4 weeks from about 2 weeks before the start

of the growing season until its end.

The detection of non-authorised abstractions of the second type (abstracted volumes) requires

mapping crop water consumption over time during the growing season. This is accomplished by using

the same time series of images as above in type 1, but processing them further in a series of steps

(Figure 20) described in detail in the sections below. The temporal resolution requirement for this

purpose is slightly different from type 1 above in that one fairly cloud-free image is needed every 1-2

weeks, again from shortly before the beginning of the growing season until its end.


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The required time resolution for both purposes can best be achieved on the basis of a multi-sensor

constellation, integrating data from all available EO platforms. The corresponding inter-sensor cross-

calibration algorithms have been developed (Martínez-Beltrán et al., 2009) and a comprehensive

cross-calibration database has since been established.

The required spatial resolution for both types depends on the parcel size statistics in the area.

Covering at least 90% of the area is normally sufficient, which means that the current Landsat-8 type

satellites can be used in most areas. Table 8 summarises the options, taking into account the need to

always aggregate 3x3 sensor pixels (compensating for georeferencing uncertainties) in order to obtain

a stably geo-localized time series (i.e. making sure that the same pixel is in the same location in all

image-based maps) (Martínez-Beltrán et al., 2009). With the advent of Sentinel-2 (expected to deliver

operationally in 2015) parcels from 0.1 ha size can be resolved. In areas with particularly small

parcels, commercial satellites offer higher resolution, albeit at higher image and processing cost.

Sensors on-board low flying aircraft, ultralights or drones accomplish the same, while offering more

local flexibility at high cost.

Table 8: EO sensors fulfilling water managers’ spatial resolution requirements

EO satellite/sensor Sensor

resolution

Resolvable

parcel size Image cost Comments

Landsat-8 30 m 1 ha free standard

processing

Landsat-8 type

(Spot, IRS, DMC) 20-30 m 1 ha

1,000-5,000€

per 100x100

km2

standard

processing

Sentinel-2 10 m 0.1 ha free planned 2015

commercial very-

high-resolution around 1 m 0.03 ha

1,000-5,000€

per 10x10 km2

increases

processing

effort (many

small images)

2. Use of EO to detect irrigated areas

The detection of irrigated areas requires land-use/land-cover maps that allow distinguishing irrigated

crops. This is accomplished by supervised multi-temporal classification on the basis of a time series of

EO images. The multi-temporal classification functions as follows. Each crop is characterised by its

phenological curve (crop coefficient vs time during the growing season). These curves are similar

within annual crop classes with similar phenology, and thus with similar water requirements and very

different between different crop classes. This allows for attributing a characteristic curve to crop

classes like a signature and to recognise them on the basis of their signature. Most irrigated crops

belong to an easily identifiable class.

The signals from an EO satellite sensor can be converted into reflectance and vegetation indices (by

combining the various spectral bands). In particular, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index

(NDVI) has been demonstrated to be linearly related to the basal crop coefficient (defined as the ratio

of the unstressed crop transpiration to the reference evapotranspiration, Allen et al. 1998). Therefore,

the phenological curves can also be expressed in terms of NDVI vs time.

Given a time series of EO images, they can be converted into a time series of NDVI maps. A spatial


water abstractions

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online analysis system (SOLAP) can then “drill” through the stack of maps at any given location and

extract the phenological curve, which allows for identification of the crop class as a first guess through

analysis such as maximum likelihood, minimum distance (which is implemented in the usual software

of digital image treatment). More refinements may be necessary and then tree decision classifier may

be necessary. Identification of some irrigated wooden crops such as fruit trees, vineyard, or olives may

require additional information like orthophotos and existing land use/cover maps. The whole procedure

is not an automatic system, but still needs further corroboration by an experienced operator. It requires

precise knowledge of crops and their phenology.

The accuracy of this procedure depends on the contrast in the temporal pattern between irrigated and

non-irrigated crops, which is crop and weather dependent. But a multiannual perspective can increase

the global accuracy. Usual accuracy in semiarid areas reaches typically over 90% of precision, which

is comparable to field work accuracy.

Figure 21 shows an example of accuracy for a range of crops in the Spanish La-Mancha Oriental

aquifer. It gives irrigated surface declared by farmers vs obtained from multi- temporal supervised

classification.

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Barley-2012

Maize 2011 Maize-2012

Wheat-2010 Wheat-2011 Wheat-2012

Es

tim

ate

d s

urf

ac

e (

ha

) b

y r

em

ote

se

ns

ing

Surface (ha) declare by farmer

Source: Adapted from (Garrido-Rubio et al., 2014)

Figure 21: Comparison between declared irrigated surfaces per plot by farmers and classified by

remote sensing

3. Use of EO to estimate abstracted volumes

The estimation of abstracted volumes requires mapping crop water consumption over time during the

growing season. This is accomplished by using the same time series of images as above in type 1, but

processing them further in a series of steps Figure 19 and Figure 20.

The need for irrigation water results from the difference between water inputs and water outputs. The

information required to control irrigation water requirements are described in Figure 22.


water abstractions

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=Irrigation need

Evapotranspiration (E)*

Precipitation (P)

Water runoff (Q)

Soil water storage (S)***

Information required to control irrigation need

Land use (type of crop)

Crop coefficient (Kc)**

Climate data (temperature and humidity)

Soil data (structure, texture, depth)

Soil data (structure, texture, depth)

Climate data (rainfall)

* Water transpired by crops

** Crop coefficient traducing the evapotranspiration characteristics of a crop compared to the reference

*** Water contained by soil accessible for crops

Legend: *Water transpired by crops and evaporated by soil **Crop coefficient traducing the evapotranspiration characteristics of a crop compared to the reference ***Water contained by soil accessible for crops

Figure 22: Calculation of irrigation requirements and associated information required for

calculation control

Traditionally, crop water requirements (CWR) have been expressed through actual evapotranspiration

(ET) from agricultural fields, which has been calculated by multiplying the reference ET (obtained from

agrometeorological stations) by a crop coefficient determined from tables according to the crop type

and the crop growth stage ("FAO-56", Allen et al., 1998). This generic procedure does not account for

variability of actual crop growth stage between and within parcels of the same crop.

There are two main approaches for the determination of crop coefficients and ET using EO. The first

approach consists of using the information derived from thermal images to solve a surface energy

balance or to adjust a model that calculates crop ET and simulates the Earth surface temperature.

The second approach uses satellite images in the visible and NIR spectral to calculate vegetation

indexes (e.g. NDVI) and to determine NDVI time profiles. These NDVI time profiles can be related to

crop coefficients and then to ET and water consumption.

Both approaches need also additional, non-EO data that can be provided by weather stations or

agrometeorological stations, such as wind speed, solar radiation, precipitation, humidity.

The approach based on crop coefficient derived from NDVI allows proceeding at higher spatial and

temporal resolution than the approach based on thermal bands. Thermal bands are available only in

Landsat data, with a typical spatial resolution of 100 meters, therefore resolving plots around 9 ha.

Multispectral bands to obtain NDVI are available from the majority of sensors on board of space

platforms. Typical spatial resolution ranging from 5 to 30 m. Research about the coupling among both

described procedures is currently on going.

The crop coefficient Kc is defined as the ratio of actual evapotranspiration ETc by reference

evapotranspiration ET0:

Kc=ETc/ET0(B.1)

The Kc coefficient integrates the effect of characteristics that distinguish a typical field crop from the

grass reference, which has a homogenous appearance and covers completely the ground (with its

reference evapotranspiration ET0). The values of Kc are influenced by crop type, climate, soil

evaporation and crop growth stages (Allen et al., 1998; Bailey, 1990).


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There are two main possibilities to obtain Kc from satellite imagery:

(i) The direct empirical approach, based on the direct (usually linear) relationship between

NDVI and Kc.

(ii) The analytical method, relying on the application of the Penman-Monteith equation, using

EO-based estimates of leaf area index, albedo and vegetation height.

We briefly describe here the first (see Box below) and refer to (D’Urso et al., 2010) for the second and

a discussion of accuracies and validation requirements.

Kc-empirical approach: steps and equations

The dual crop coefficient approach (Allen et al., 1998; Wright, 1982), splits the total crop

coefficient into crop transpiration (Kcb) and soil evaporation (Ke):

Kc = Kcb + Ke (B.2)

The basal crop coefficient Kcb can be obtained from NDVI as shown in Eq. (B.3) (Bausch and

Neale, 1987)

Kcb*=1.36·NDVI-0.06,(B.3)

where Kcb*, the “spectral” basal crop coefficient [typical value range 0.10 – 1.15], can be

assimilated to the FAO 56 basal crop coefficient, and

NDVI is calculated from Landsat5TM and 7-ETM+ bands. [Typical range values: bare soil 0.12-

0.16; maximum NDVI value 0.91, (D’Urso et al., 2010)]

Similarly an approximation for obtaining Kc from NDVI is given in Eq. (B.4).

Kc*=1.15·NDVI+0.17,(B.4)

where the “spectral” crop coefficient Kc*[value range of 0.15 – 1.20], can be assimilated to the

FAO 56 crop coefficient, and

NDVI is calculated from red and NIR bands. [Typical range values: bare soil 0.12-0.16; maximum

NDVI value 0.91; (D’Urso et al., 2010)

Eq. (B.3) and (B.4) have been evaluated for irrigated crops in the area of La Mancha, Spain, using

NDVI measured from Landsat TM and ETM+ for high coverage herbaceous crops (Cuesta et al.,

2005). The relationships have been found to be stable and crop-independent for a wide range of

conditions (Cuesta et al., 2005).

For special cases, when no atmospheric correction method is available, Eq. (B.5) and Eq. (B.6)

offer reasonable estimations of Kcb and Kc.

Kcb*=1.15·NDVITOA+0.14(B.5)

Kc*=1.25·NDVITOA+0.20,(B.6)

where again Kcb* and Kc* are the “spectral” basal crop coefficient and “spectral” crop coefficient,

respectively, and

NDVITOA, is calculated at sensor reflectance (top of atmosphere).


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Starting from the EO-based crop coefficient, the calculation of crop water requirements (CWR) or

ETc follows directly from inversion of equation B.1. The required reference evapotranspiration data are

normally obtained from agrometeorological stations (using Penman, Penman-Monteith, or Hargraves

formulas, depending on data availability, see (Allen et al., 1998)). They can also come from high-

resolution numerical weather prediction models.

In a simplified way, the irrigation water, required by a crop growing under standard conditions, is then

calculated as a function of ETc and the precipitation rate (Pn), actually infiltrating through the soil

surface :

IWR = ETc - Pn (B.7)

The full step from CWR to irrigation water requirements (IWR) is accomplished by the use of a soil

water balance (SWB) model. Soil water balance models are fundamental tools for irrigation purposes

and a physical description of the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum must be based on an understanding

of this balance (Hillel, 1998). In addition to its conceptual relevance, the practical application of the

SWB method in irrigation agriculture allow to considers the use of the water resources stored in the

soil by the crops and the benefits of the precipitation reducing the irrigation water requirements (IWR).

During a growing season, the crop water requirements (CWR) are covered by irrigation, the

precipitation retained in the root zone during the growing season and the depletion of the water

resources stored in the soil. The relative importance of each component of the water budget varies

depending on the meteorological conditions during the growing season and the crop characteristics.

Annual crops generally exhibit low soil profundities, and in semiarid areas the CWRs are mainly

covered by irrigation or occasional precipitation. In contrast, annual crops growing in semiarid areas

explore great soil profundities and almost 60% of the CWR are covered by the water resources stored

in the soil (Campos et al., 2010).

Current operational and spatialised applications of SWB models include HidroMORE (Sánchez et al.,

2010; Sánchez et al., 2012; Torres, 2010) and SAMIR (Le Page et al., 2009) and simplified

approaches such as MINARET (González-Dugo et al., 2013; Mateos et al., 2013). The accuracy of

this satellite-assisted procedure is similar to that reached by field work to determine crop coefficient,

which is widely used in agronomy since 1977, when FAO published a complete manual about this

procedure (Doorenbos and Pruitt, 1977). This manual was updated and refined by (Allen et al., 1998).

HidroMORE® is an operative model for CWR and IWR estimation integrating remote sensing and

meteorological data in the dual crop coefficient FAO-56 methodology. HidroMORE® computes the

balance at daily scale and spatially distributed. The spatial scale is only limited by the resolution of the

input images and the extension of the study area is equally limited by the extension of the satellite

images. HidroMORE and SAMIR are operative models computing spatialized estimates CWR and

IWR on large areas, based on the use of satellite images. The computation of the water budget

requires climatic data and land cover data. Irrigation is estimated from the computation of the water

budget, using hypotheses on the water management modes and especially the average water stress

level allowed. The main difference between both models is the approaches used to compute CWR.

HidroMORE assimilates multi spectral data according to the relationship between vegetation indices

and crop coefficient and SAMIR uses EO data to describe the crop development for estimating crop

coefficients according to the FAO56 method (Allen et al., 1998).

Crop water consumption refers to the water evapotranspirated by the cover and it is determined by the

procedure above indicated, by calculating evapotranspiration. IWR is the net amount of water to be

supplied by irrigation in the root soil layer that the crop requires to grow without stress.

Irrigation Water Applied (IWA) is the amount of water that is applied by the irrigation system to meet

the IWR and it depends on soil, irrigation system and meteorological conditions, mainly wind. The step

from IWR to IWA is usually performed by using an average efficiency involving all factors. For

simplified calculations an efficiency coefficient of 85% for modern irrigation system is assumed. It


water abstractions

| 92

means that only an 85% of applied water is beneficial for the crop. The rest of applied water will be

lost by evaporation, run-off, or percolated. Spatialised data on irrigation installations and equipment

(surface, sprinkler, pivot, drip) contribute to increasing the accuracy of IWA.

Figure 23 shows the data supplied by farmers about the amount of water applied to the crops which

are compared with the amount of water calculated by the procedure above described. This dataset

indicates a global accuracy about of 10% (Garrido-Rubio et al. 2014). Accuracies obtained from

application of METRIC in Idaho (Allen et al., 2012) are in the same range.

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000Irrigation in plots

Barley-2012

Wheat-2012

Maize-2012

Wheat-2011

Maize-2011

Wheat-2010

Irri

ga

tio

n (

mm

·ye

ar-1

) s

imu

late

d b

y H

idro

MO

RE

Irrigation (mm·year-1) declare by farmer

Source: adapted from Garrido-Rubio et al., 2014

Figure 23: Comparison among amount of irrigation water applied by farmer and irrigation water

applied estimated by the methodology kc-NDVI- ETo

Finally, the step from IWA to water abstractions may involve efficiencies of conveyor systems, if

applicable (usually in surface irrigation schemes). Moreover, individual farmers’ decisions about the

water effectively applied could be different from the IWA calculated considering no stress. Figure 24

shows an example of comparison at aquifer scale between estimated abstractions (aggregation of all

individual farms) and observed piezometric values in the La-Mancha Oriental aquifer (González et al.,

2013). An overall accuracy of 10-20% has been found.


water abstractions

| 93

Source: González et al. 2013

Figure 24: Comparison of estimated abstractions at aquifer scale with observed piezometric

level variations


water abstractions

| 94

4. References

Allen, R.G., Pereira, L.S., Raes, D. and Smith and M., 1998. Crop evapotranspiration: Guidelines for

computing crop requirements. Irrigation and Drainage Paper No. 56, FAO, Rome, Italy, 300 pp.

Allen et al., 2012

Bailey, J.O., 1990. The potential value of remotely sensed data in the assessment of

evapotranspiration and evaporation. Remote Sensing Reviews, 4(2): 349-377.

Bausch, W.C. and Neale, C.M.U., 1987. Crop coefficients derived from reflected canopy radiation - a concept. Transactions of the ASAE, 30(3): 703-709.

Campos, I., Neale, C.M.U., Calera, A., Balbontin, C. and González-Piqueras, J., 2010. Assesing

satellite-based basal crop coefficients for irrigated grapes (Vitis vinifera L.). Agricultural Water

Management, Volume 98, pp. 45-54.

Cuesta, A., Montoro, A., Jochum, A.M., López, P. and Calera, A., 2005. Metodología operativa para la

obtención del coeficiente de cultivo desde imágenes de satélite. ITEA : Información Técnica

Económica Agraria, 101(3): 212-224.

Doorenbos, J. and Pruitt, W.O., 1977. Guidelines for predicting crop water requirements.

D’Urso, G., Richter, K., Calera, A., Osann, A., Escadafal, R., Garatuza-Payán, J., Hanich, L.,

Perdigão, A., Tapia, J.B. and Vuolo, F., 2010. Earth Observation products for operational irrigation

management in the context of the PLEIADeS project. Agricultural Water Management, Volume 98,

Issue 2, pp.271-282.

Garrido-Rubio, J. et al., 2014. Irrigation water accounting by remote sensing: three years case study in

Mancha Oriental in two water management scales, from plot to water user association. in-press.

Glenn, E.P., Neale, C.M.U., Hunsaker, D.J. and Nagler, P.L., 2011. Vegetation index-based crop

coefficients to estimate evapotranspiration by remote sensing in agricultural and natural ecosystems.

Hydrological Processes, Volume 25, issue 26, pp.4050-4062.

González, L.; Bodas, V.; Esposito, G.; ampos, I.; Aliaga, J.; Calera, A., 2013. Estimation of irrigation

requirements for wheat in the southern Spain by using soil water balance remote sensing driven. In:

E.G. Union (Editor), European Geosciences Union | General Assembly 2013, Vienna, Austria.

González-Dugo, M.P. et al., 2013. Monitoring evapotranspiration of irrigated crops using crop

coefficients derived from time series of satellite images. II. Application on basin scale. Agricultural

Water Management, Volume 125, pp.92- 104.

Hillel, D., 1998. Environmental Soil Physics. Fundamentals, Applications, and Environmental

Considerations. Academic Press, San Diego.

Martínez-Beltrán, C., Jochum, M.A.O., Calera, A. and Meliá, J., 2009. Multisensor comparison of NDVI

for a semi-arid environment in Spain. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 30(5): 1355-1384

Mateos, L., González-Dugo, M.P., Testi, L. and Villalobos, F.J., 2013. Monitoring evapotranspiration of

irrigated crops using crop coefficients derived from time series of satellite images. I. Method validation.

Agricultural Water Management, 125: pp.81– 91.

Sánchez, N., Martínez-Fernández, J., Calera, A., Torres, E. and Pérez-Gutiérrez, C., 2010. Combining remote sensing and in situ soil moisture data for the application and validation of a distributed water balance model (HIDROMORE). Agricultural Water Management, Volume 98, Issue 1, pp.69-78.

Sánchez, N., Martínez-Fernández, J., Rodríguez-Ruiz, M., Torres, E. and Calera, A., 2012. A

simulation of soil water content based on remote sensing in a semi-arid Mediterranean agricultural


water abstractions

| 95

landscape. Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research, Volume 10, pp.521-531.Torres, E.A., 2010. El

modelo FAO-56 asistido por satélite en la estimació n de la evapotranspiració n en un cultivo bajo

estrés hídrico y en suelo desnudo, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (UCLM).

Le Page, M. et al., 2009. SAMIR a tool for irrigation monitoring us ing remote sensing for

evapotranspiration estimate. Technological perspectives for rational use of water resources in the

Mediterranean region, Bari: CIHEAM(Options Méditerranéennes: Série A. Séminaires Méditerranéens;

n. 88): 275-282.

Wright, J.L., 1982. New Evapotranspiration Crop Coefficients. Journal of the Irrigation and Drainage

Division, 108(IR2): 57-74.


water abstractions

| 96



Annex 4: Overview of EO tools and services

Table 9: Summary of existing Earth Observation initiatives currently used or with potential to detect non-authorised water abstractions

Service

Outputs

(all spatially distributed)

End user Satellites (spectral

range) Approach

Land Use/Cover

map source

Distribution via

References Geographical

coverage Web site

SIRIUS- IWMS /

ERMOT /

HidroMORE

CWR, IWR, CWC & more

Authority, farmer

Solar Kc-VI

multi-

temporal

Earth

Observation

+ ancillary

data

webGIS (SPIDER)

Osann et al. 2013 /

Sánchez et al., 2012

many areas on 4 continents; in Spain since

1996

www.sirius-gmes.es

www.hidromore.es

MINARET CWR, CWC Authority Solar Kc-VI LPIS+Earth

Observation internal server

González-Dugo et al., 2013

Guadalquivir river basin

n/a

Idaho department

of water resources

CWR, CWC Authority Thermal +

solar METRIC

Grower declaration

Web browser

Allen et al., 2007a; Allen et

al., 2007b

Idaho & more U.S. areas

http://maps.idwr.idaho.gov/ET/Map

WaterWatch CWR, CWC Authority Thermal +

solar SEBAL n/a

direct delivery

Bastiaanssen et al., 1998

Africa (several),

Saudi Arabia, Yemen

www.waterwatch.nl

MONIDRI CWR, IWR &

more Authority solar Kc-VI

cadastral data base

web Nino et al. 2012 Italy (several) n/a




Service

Outputs



range) Approach

Land Use/Cover

map source

Distribution via


coverage Web site

(national project)

TOPS-SIMS CWR, IWR Farmers Solar Kc-VI Grower

declaration Web

browser

Melton et al., 2012

California http://ecocast.arc.nasa.g

ov/dgw/sims/

IrriSatSMS CWR, IWR Farmer Solar

spectra Kc-VI

Grower declaration

SMS Hornbuckle et

al., 2009

Australia (various); California

http://www.irrigateway.net/

IRRISAT CWR, IWR Farmer Solar

spectra Kc-VI

(analytic) Grower

declaration Web

browser Vuolo et al. 2013

Southern Italy (several)

http://www.irrisat.it/

SIRIUS-IFAS CWR, IWR,

input req., yield Farmer solar Kc-VI

Earth Observation + producers

webGIS (SPIDER)

Calera et al., 2013

Spain www.agrisat.es

IrriLook /FieldLook

(eLeaf) CWR Farmer

thermal +solar

SEBAL n/a web Bastiaanssen et

al., 1998 NL

http://www.waterwatch.nl/products/irrisat.html

SAMIR CWR, CWC Authority solar Kc-VI / water

balance Grower

direct delivery

Le Page et al., 2012

Morocco (Tensift)

n/a

AGRASER CWR & input

req., yield Farmer solar Kc-VI

Earth Observation + producers

web Palacios et al.

2003 Mexico n/a

TELERIEG CWR Farmer,

authority

solar + airborne sensors

Kc-VI n/a (project) Jiménez-Bello

2011 several areas ES, PT, FR

www.telerieg.net (project information)

Isareg / GISAREG

CWR farmer solar Kc-VI producer web /

webGIS Fortes et al 2004

Portugal, Argentina

n/a



http://www.irrisat.it/

http://www.agrisat.es/

http://www.telerieg.net/


Service

Outputs



range) Approach

Land Use/Cover

map source

Distribution via


coverage Web site

Pereira et al., 2003

Farmstar

crop state; input

requirements (cereals only)

Farmer, distributor

s

solar + airborne sensors

n/a n/a web n/a France https://www.farmstar-

conseil.fr/

CROPIO Input

requirements Farmer solar n/a n/a

Web browser/

Smartphone

n/a US, CA, UK, RU, Ukraine

https://cropio.com/

FARMSAT Input

requirements Farmer solar n/a n/a

Web browser/

Smartphone

n/a France &

global

http://www.farmsatpro.geosys-na.com

FieldLook (Eleaf)

Input requirements

Farmer thermal + solar

SEBAL+ Kc-VI

producers web Bastiaanssen et al., 1998

NL, CA, PL, Ukraine

ww.fieldlook.com

agrosat crop state general solar NDVI n/a web n/a Spain www.agrosat.info

Legend for table:

Blue = Earth Observation applications related to irrigation water abstractions Green = Earth Observation applications related to irrigation advisory / irrigation scheduling Gold = Earth Observation applications related to precision farming No colour = Earth Observation applications using additional models CWR = crop water requirements IWR = irrigation water requirements Inputs = fertilisers, pesticides CWC = crop water consumption

European Commission - Use of Earth observation by water managers to

detect and manage non-authorised water abstractions | 100

References:

Allen, R.G., Masahiro, T., Morse, A., Trezza, R., Wright, J.L., Bastiaanssen, W., Kramber, W., Lorite, I. and Robinson, C.W., 2007a. Satellite-Based Energy Balance for Mapping Evapotranspiration with Internalized Calibration (METRIC) – Applications. Journal of irrigation and drainage engineering, July-August 2007, pp. 395-406.

Allen, R.G., Tasumi, M. and Trezza, R., 2007b. Satellite-based energy balance for mapping

evapotranspiration with internalized calibration (METRIC)-Model. Journal of irrigation and drainage

engineering, July-August 2007, pp.380-394.

Bastiaanssen, W.G.M., Menenti, M., Feddes, R.A. and Holtslag, A.A.M., 1998. A remote sensing

surface energy balance algorithm for land (SEBAL). 1. Formulation. Journal of Hydrometeorology,

212-213: 198-212.

Calera, A., Osann, A., Campos, I., Garrido, J. and Bodas, V., 2013a. The SIRIUS Integrated Farm Advisory Service. Manuscript for submission to Agric. Water Management.

Calera, A. et al., 2013b. Evolución de las superficies en regadío, en el ámbito del acuífero de la

Mancha Oriental, mediante el empleo de técnicas de observación de la Tierra (ERMOT). Campaña

2013, UCLM (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha), Albacete

Fortes P., Pereira L. and Campos A., 2004. GISAREG, a GIS based irrigation scheduling simulation

model. In: M. Kuiper et al. (Ed.) Modernisation de l’Agriculture Irriguée (Semin. Wademed, Rabat,

Maroc, Apr. 2004), IAV Hassan II, Rabat et IRD, Montpellier.

González-Dugo, M.P. et al., 2013. Monitoring evapotranspiration of irrigated crops using crop

coefficients derived from time series of satellite images. II. Application on basin scale. Agricultural

Water Management, Volume 125, pp.92- 104.

Hornbuckle, J.W., Car, N.J., Christen, E.W., Stein, T.-M. and Williamson, B., 2009a. IrriSatSMS.

Irrigation water management by satellite and SMS - A utilisation framework. CRC for Irrigation Futures

Technical Report No. 01/09 and CSIRO Land and Water Science Report No. 04/09

Jiménez-Bello, M. Á., Ballester, C., Castel, J.R. and Intrigliolo, D.S., 2011. Development and

validation of an automatic thermal imaging process for assessing plant water status. Agricultural Water

Management, Volume 98, Issue 10, August 2011, pp.1497 -1504.

Le Page, M., et al (12 authors), 2012. An Integrated DSS for groundwater management based on

remote sensing: The case of a semi-arid aquifer in Morocco. Water Resources Management, Volume

26, pp.3209-3230.

Melton, F.S. et al., 2012. Satellite Irrigation Management Support With the Terrestrial Observation and

Prediction System: A Framework for Integration of Satellite and Surface Observations to Support

Improvements in Agricultural Water Resource Management. IEEE Journal of selected topics in applied

Earth Observations and remote sensing, Volume 5, Issue 6.

Nino, P., Dono, G., Severini, S., Bazzoffi, P., Napoli, R. and Giannerini, G. 2012. MONIDRI – A

participatory IDSS for water use management in agriculture at river basin level.

Osann et al. 2013 /

Palacios, E., Martínez, M., Mejía, E., Paz, F. and L.A. Palacios 2003. El concepto de Agricultura

Asistida por Sensores Remotos, In: A. de Alba, L. Reyes y M. Tiscareño (editores), Memoria del

Simposio Binacional de Modelaje y Sensores Remotos en Agricultura México-USA, INIFAP-

SAGARPA, Aguascalientes, México, pp. 39-45Pereira et al., 2003

Sánchez, N., Martínez-Fernández, J., Rodríguez-Ruiz, M., Torres, E. and Calera, A., 2012. A

simulation of soil water content based on remote sensing in a semi-arid Mediterranean agricultural

landscape. Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research, Volume 10, pp.521-531.



Vuolo, F., D'Urso, G., De Michele, C. and Cutting, M. 2013. Satellite-based Irrigation Advisory

Services: a common tool for different experiences from Europe to Australia submitted to Agric. Water

Management.





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| 103

Annex 5: Background on water rights

in the EU

In each Member State, water abstraction is “regulated” more or less formally through the allocation of

water rights to different users, especially in regions where over-abstractions were identified or regions

with high risk of water stress. Controls on withdrawals are basic measures listed in article 11(3) of the

WFD.

1. The attributes of water rights

Water rights can be defined following a number of attributes related to:

Water resources used: quantity and quality of the water, the source and location;

Characteristics of use: use, location and duration; and

Administration of the right: ownership and transfer, security and enforcement (Table 10).

Table 10: Possible attributes of water rights

Attributes of

water rights Definition

Quantity The amount of water the holder of the right may abstract, in terms of volume or

maximum flow.

Quality The quality of the water to be abstracted or disposed of.

Source The specific resource (surface water, groundwater) and location from which the

right is awarded.

Timing Restrictions on the time that the right applies, i.e. times that the volume may be

abstracted.

Assurance

Some rights are absolute – 100% of supply guarantee of a certain quantity and

quality, while other rights have variable assurance of supply and quality

depending on the available resource. This can be based, for example, on

principles of priority or proportionality.

Use The specific use for which the water is abstracted (e.g. irrigation, mining, etc.)

Duration

The duration for which the holder is entitled to the rights conferred. Some rights

are permanent while other rights are authorised for a specified period of time

(from 10 to 75 years).


water abstractions

| 104

Attributes of

water rights Definition

Ownership and

transfer

Whether the right can be sold, transferred to another person or location, or

inherited.

Security and

enforcement

Details of the administrative body that has the legal mandate to award the

right, including the extent of that mandate.

Source: Adapted from Le Quesne et al., 2007

2. Criteria for the attribution of water rights

In some Member States such as Denmark, Germany and Ireland, the attribution of water rights is

systematically mandatory for a user to be able to abstract water. In other Member States, like in

Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland and Hungary, this obligation can be restricted to specific

activities or to intended volumes of abstraction or hectares of irrigated areas beyond a certain

threshold. For instance in Bulgaria abstractions of more than 10 m3 per day require a permit. In

Estonia the limit above which water permits are required is set to 30 m3 per day for surface water and

5 m3 per day for groundwater abstractions. In Portugal, depending on the surface area to be irrigated,

the water user may apply for a water license (surface under 50 ha) or to a concession title (surface

exceeding 50 ha). Similarly, depending on countries, the right to abstract water can be associated to

specific abstraction points or to defined irrigated areas. In Spain, Portugal and Slovenia water rights

that are granted for irrigation purposes are associated to a specific abstraction site and to the land

intended to be irrigated.

3. Mechanisms for the allocation of water rights

In the most frequent cases, where water resources belong to the public domain, the definition,

attribution and control of water rights are managed by public authorities or other management bodies

at different scales. In many Member States, water is considered private, but its use is publically

regulated (the owners need a permit to be able to use it). Most Member States manage water rights at

regional level, which are then further allocated at river basin level, and further down at the level of the

irrigators’ community. Water rights can therefore be owned by one or several types of stakeholders

(public, such as State, public institution, public water supplier; or private organisations, such as private

water suppliers, farmers).

The main forms of public allocation mechanisms found in the EU in the public domain include (EC,

2012; Dvorak et al., 2010):

Public allocation: the right to abstract or use water is issued by an official authority

(local, regional, river basin district (RBD)-wide or national public water authorities /

ministries, depending on the management scale), for varying durations. Depending on

the Member State, the responsibilities of allocating water rights, monitoring water

abstractions and managing land use will be given to one unique organism or to several

ones. In the latter case, the different authorities have to cooperate and share

information in order to achieve an efficient management (Figure 25).


water abstractions

| 105

Water userspecific water needs (e.g. 10000 m3 per year for irrigation purposes)

Authority responsible for water rights allocationdifferent levels (local,

regional, river basin district, national)

- Water resources management- Elaboration of water

management plans

Authority responsible for water abstraction

surveillance

Authority responsible for land administration

different levels (local, regional, river basin district,

national)- Official land cadaster update

Application

for water

rights

Allocation of water

rights depending on

the water

management plan

Declaration of

water

consumption

Water abstraction control:

- Analysis of water

declaration

- Organisation of field

inspections

- Penalising in case of

non-authorised

abstraction

Application for:

- Changes in

land use

- Authorisatio

n for drilling

a new well

Information

sharing

Information

sharing

Information

sharing

Authorisation

delivery

Figure 25: Schematic illustration of water governance

Note: These are key principles that are likely to vary across countries.

Traditional or customary user-based allocation: based on traditional, non-state law or

custom, water allocation is based on criteria such as timed rotation, arable land area or

flow shares. A locally respected, non-state institution such as a village council is

generally employed to regulate water allocation. This allocation mechanism is usually

confined to the beneficiaries of a local tank/pond or part of a large irrigation scheme.

Water markets: in some Member States, water rights can be legally transferred from

some users (public organisations, private companies, individuals) to others through the

exchange of a number of tradable certificates or permits, even across sectors. The

scale of this type of transfer can vary from the local level to inter-basin transfers. Many

informal water markets also exist where, for example, a seller offers water pumped from

his own well to neighbouring water users. This informal type of transaction mostly

occurs at local scale. In Spain, for example, contracts for the temporary transfer of

rights between users with a licence are possible under certain conditions. River Basin

organizations can make public offers of water rights sales to transfer them to other

users.

In the EU, there are still a number of countries where water resources are attached to land ownership

and still belong to private owners. This different legal status of water resources makes the

management and monitoring of abstractions challenging for the water authorities, which may have

difficulty identifying the different sources and overall volumes of abstractions. In Spain for instance,

both situations could be found until all water resources were declared public with the Water Law of

1985. The transition period from private ownership to the public domain extends until 2035. Another

challenge for water management can be observed in Cyprus and in the Netherlands, where certain

individual farmers may have historical rights to abstract water although water resources are

considered part of the public domain.


water abstractions

| 106

4. Compilation of information on water rights in selected countries in the EU

Information has been collected for countries with identified risks of water shortages, high water

abstractions for irrigation and/or identified willingness to expand irrigation in a near future (Table 11).

Table 11: Overview of information on water rights for irrigation for selected countries in the EU

Member

States

Authority

responsible for

water rights

Type of water rights

Bulgaria Ministry of

Environment and

Water, Basin

Directorate and

local municipality

Extractions of more than 10 m³/day require permission.

Cyprus53

Ministry of

Interior, through

District Offices

Allocation of water abstraction rights from surface water or

groundwater relies on a permitting system, although historical rights of

use may persist.

Every year (except years with satisfactory rainfall inflow), the Water

Development Department of the Ministry of Agriculture Natural

Resources and Environment (WDD) estimates the available total water

quantities for the coming period, the water needs and prepares a

scenario for the allocation of water for the different uses for the coming

year (Drought Mitigation and Response Plan).

Farmers submit to the WDD their application for the supply of irrigation

water, and give information related to the area and type of crops they

cultivate.

Czech

Republic

Regional and

local

government

Permission for water withdrawals are required if the volume of water

exceeds a certain level (no quantitative information could be

collected).

In water balance, as adopted in state watersheds plans, there are

registered volumes of water for irrigation exceeding 6 000 to 10 000

m3 per year

54.

Denmark Local

municipalities

Permits are required for water abstractions.

53 Representative from the Ministry of Agriculture, Cyprus, personal communication

Water Development Department website. [Online] Available at: http://www.moa.gov.cy/moa/wdd/wdd.nsf/index_en/index_en?OpenDocument

54 Research Water Institute for Soil and Water Conservation, unpublished document


water abstractions

| 107

Member

States

Authority

responsible for

water rights


Estonia Water abstraction is charged according to Environmental Charges Act

in Estonia. However in 2009, there was no water abstraction charge

for irrigation of agricultural land.

Water permit is necessary if surface water is abstracted above 30

m3/day. Water permit is necessary if groundwater is abstracted above

5 m3/day

France Department Since 1992, water withdrawals are subject to authorisation or

declaration with the prefect or department (s) concerned (s),

depending on the type of use and limits explained in the

Environmental Code (Article R 214-1, Article R 214-6 and R 214-32).

These abstractions can be limited or revoked seasonally in situations

of water shortage.

Historically, water rights refer to water flows from the river. Since 2007,

declarations and authorisations are based more often on volumes

abstracted.

Declarations and authorisations for groundwater abstraction are based

on volumes abstracted (> 1000 m3/yr).

Greece General

Secretary of the

Decentralised

Region (in which

the River Basin

District is

located)

Both the groundwater and surface water abstractions require licenses.

Approval of environmental permits is mandatory for every water

abstraction, as well as proof of ownership of the area to be irrigated .

According to the national law there are 19 categories of water rights,

grouped in five main groups. Anyone can apply for a water permit, as

long as he/she fulfills the criteria imposed by the law.

Hungary Hungarian

Environment

Protection

Agency

Under the Water Management Act water licences are needed for all

water-using activities, and approval is needed for building any

irrigation infrastructure. Both landowners and other users have equal

rights to use water. Water licenses are granted for a given quantity of

water for a given abstraction point and for a specific use. Deeper

groundwater and karstic water cannot be used for irrigation.

Abstractions of more than 500 m3/yr require a license.

Abstractions of less than 500 m3/yr require a license for households

but not for agricultural or industrial uses.

2470 irrigation licences were granted on surface waters by mid- 2014.

They are granted for maximum 5 years, and reviewed when

necessary.

The licence is given by the regional water authority depending on the

technical approval of the water directorates.


water abstractions

| 108

Member

States

Authority

responsible for

water rights


Italy Inter-Regional

River Basin

Authorities

(RBAs),

Regional

authorities and

Consortia

System of licences for water withdrawals. Different quantities allowed

for summer and winter irrigation. Mix of private and public owned water

rights. Nationally about 50% of the irrigated area makes use of water

supplied by water companies (mostly public, but some private), with

the other 50% directly abstracted by farmers.

In the case of water rights for irrigation purposes, each Consortium

(association of farmers) receives from the regional authority a certain

amount of water that has been decided by the RBAs. The Consortium

distributes this amount to its members.

Malta Water rights are still under development.

Netherlan

ds

Regional Mix of private and public owned water rights.

Under the Resource Management Act, licences are required but

individual farmers have historical rights to extract water (up to a certain

threshold for groundwater), excluding water used for drinking or

livestock. Water permits may contain a number of conditions (e.g.

volumetric controls, land titles, location of use). Occasionally water

boards deliver water to a group of farmers.

Poland Regional sub-

basin

Water is a public good. Extractions of more than 5 m³/day require

permission, which is issued for a specified period. For ground water, a

permit is also required, but land owners are entitled to ‘normal’ use

within their property.

Portugal

Portuguese

Environment

Protection

Agency

Local water

users

associations

Water resources use permits are required, under national legislation:

Law No. 58/2005 of 29 December (Water Law, which partially

transposes WFD) and Decree-Law No. 226-A/2007 of 31 May that

regulates the use of water. In this scope, water abstraction (whatever

its purpose - for irrigation, human consumption, industry or other) is

subjected to an authorization (or a previous communication), a license

or a concession depending on the use rights of the water resource

(public or private).

Authorisation is required for water abstraction of water (except when

extraction equipment has a power lower than 5 horsepower (hp) and

has no significant impact on water resources; in this case, water

abstraction only needs a previous communication).

License is required for water abstraction of public water. In the case of

water abstraction of public water for irrigation of areas higher than 50

ha, for public supply or for energy production, a concession is

required.


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Romania River Basin,

control by

National

Environmental

Guard and the

National

Administration

“Apele Romane”

(both under the

authority of

Ministry of

Environment)

Irrigation

systems

managed by the

National Land

Reclamation

Agency (ANIF)

subordinated to

the Ministry of

Agriculture. The

tariff for irrigation

water delivery

established by

Government

ordinance

There is no restriction for the use of surface water providing that no

installation or low capacity installation up to 0.2 l/s is used (and only

for domestic use). In other cases, the allocation procedure is based on

water balance calculations aiming to meet the water demands of all

water users within the river basin, including the requirements for

satisfying the downstream users, such as for the servitudes

discharges.

The water reservoirs from hydro-electrical plants are used primarily for

producing energy and secondarily for irrigation.

Slovenia District Permits are required and issued for a period of 10 years.


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Spain Region (intra-

regional basins)

or River Basin

Authorities

(inter-regional

basins)

The competent authority issues entitlements and use rights. Water

rights are attached to land ownership. In Spain there are currently

three different types of legal title to obtain the water use:

The legal license: a maximum period of 75 years.

The legal disposition: direct recognition of the water use by the

Water Act (groundwater abstractions less than 7,000 m3/yr).

The property title: in accordance with the repealed Act (generally

valid until 2035, but in the process of disappearing).

For irrigation, water rights are defined for a specific abstraction site

and corresponding irrigated land. They give right to a certain annual

volume of water over a certain period of time (max. 75 years).

The legal license is the general rule. The legal license is not a static

title and can be modified by the administration or at the request of the

license-holder.

As an exception to the rule, a legal disposition allows use of 7.000

m3 of groundwater in the same soil where it is extracted.

River basin authorities are responsible for the allocation of water

rights,but Water User Communities or Irrigation Communities acquire

the commitment to monitor their own water use.

The Canary Islands have a different regulation because of their

insularity. Currently it’s studying the possibility of regulating water

rights.

Water rights cannot be traded, but they can be lent under certain

conditions during a period of time and in specific situations such as

scarcity of water resources and drought, with the approval of the

competent authority.

The Water Act of 1985 created a transition period to adapt the former

private exploitation of groundwater (property title water), which is now

considered as a public resource. This transition period will last until

2035. Within this period, water owners are given the option to keep

their private rights for a certain time. The Water Register regroups

legal licenses, legal dispositions (minor groundwater abstractions) and

property titles.


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United

Kingdom

Regional offices

of Environment

Agency (at river

basin level)

Right of access to the point of abstraction is required. Water

entitlement can be owned by public/private individuals/companies.

In the UK, water abstraction licences are required for quantities above

20 m3/day. Licence is usually given for 12 years and carries with it

environmental conditions. Same is applied for ground water although

consent from the Environment Agency is required before granting the

pumping license.

In 2006, Scotland introduced a risk based legislative framework to

control activities likely to have an adverse impact on the water

environment; including abstractions for agriculture. Extractions > 10

m³/day require authorisation: registration up to 50 m³/day, simple

licence if > 50 m³ and ≤2.000 m³/day, complex licence if >2.000

m³/day.

References:

Dworak, T., Schmidt, G., de Stephano, L., Palacis, E. and Berglund, M., 2010. Background paper to

the conference: Application of the EU water-related Policies at farm level, 28-29 September 2010,

Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.

European Commission Final Report, 2012. The role of water pricing and water allocation in agriculture

in delivering sustainable water use in Europe.

Le Quesne, T., Pegram, G. and Von Der Heyden, C. , 2007. Allocating scarce water, A primer on

water allocation, water rights and water markets.

Literature complemented with the results from the consutation of Member States’ experts.

Documents

Applying Earth observation to detect non-authorised … · Applying Earth observation to detect non-authorised water abstractions Annexes to the Guidance document