Section outline

  • Getting Started

    Collapse all Expand all

    lecture slides

    Hello, my name is Egor Prikaziuk and I am happy to welcome you to the Crop Water Productivity course.

    In the Course description, you can find the general background of the topic.

    See How to self-enrol instructions to get access to all the content and quizzes.

    Upon completing the course you will be able to :

    1. Explain the link between crop yield and crop water demand (reading, lecture)
    2. Link the components of CWP (plant productivity, evapotranspiration) with the respective EO-based modelling techniques (reading, lecture)
    3. Calculate crop yield from EO-based gross primary productivity (GPP) estimates (exercise, Excel, Python)
    4. Identify phenological metrics (start, end of the growing season) from EO data (exercise, Excel, Python)
    5. Produce meaningful, growing season-related estimates of CWP (exercise, Python, WaPOR)
    6. Conclude on the efficiency of the water management scheme in the study area (case study)

    We are going to be using the FAO portal to monitor Water Productivity through Open access of Remotely sensed derived data (WaPOR). 

    How is the course content organized: 
    The content in this course is organized based on learning objectives. Simply click through the modules to complete the course material at your own pace. 
    Please, use the Q&A forum for questions and discussions

    Course workload: 10 hours

    Reference reading: WaPOR v2 methodology

    Acknowledgements

    This HE Teaching Material was supported by the EGU Higher Education Teaching Material Grant 2023

    Suhyb Salama, UT-ITC associate professor at the water resources department, helped with the course description 
    Gianluca Ambrosi and Laura Cray, UT-ITC e-learning specialists, helped with setting up the Moodle LMS

    Copyrights
    CC-BY4 license logoThe materials are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Free to share and adapt but with attribution.

    Moodle Support
    New to Moodle? Learn how to get the most out of the platform (like how to only get important notifications!)

  • Topic 0: getting WaPOR data

    We are going to work with the FAO Water Productivity Open-access Portal (WaPOR) data. 

    The data will be given to you in an Excel file so it is not obligatory for you to download your own data.

    The FAO WaPOR has two ways to access data:

    1. Manually through a graphical user interface (GUI) https://wapor.apps.fao.org/home/WAPOR_2/1
    2. Programmatically through an application programming interface (API) 

    In either case, a shape file with a field boundary has to be ready.

    This module should take you 0.5 hours.

    • Video - 5 minutes
    • Portal registration [optional] - 5 minutes
    • Data preparation [optional] - 20-30 minutes

  • Topic 1: CWP concepts

    In this topic, you will learn how to: 

    1. Explain the link between crop yield and crop water demand (reading, lecture)

    This introductory module should take you from 0.5 to 1 hour.

    • Video - 5 minutes
    • Reading and questions - 20-45 minutes
    • Quiz - 10 minutes

  • Topic 2: CWP and EO

    In this topic, you will learn how to: 

    2. Link the components of CWP (plant productivity, evapotranspiration) with the respective EO-based modelling techniques (reading, lecture)

    This is the most heavily loaded module that should take you from 1 to 5 hours.

    • Video - 15 minutes
    • Reading and questions - 1-4 hours
    • Quiz - 20 minutes

  • Topic 3: GPP to yield

    A farmer is interested in yield rather than productivity, which is why crop water productivity is defined from yield rather than from dry biomass.

    In this topic, you will learn and practice how to:

    3. Calculate crop yield from EO-based gross primary productivity (GPP) estimates (exercise, Excel, Python)

    This module should take you from 1 to 2 hours.

    • Video - 5 minutes
    • Reading and questions - 20 minutes to 1 hour
    • Quiz - 10 minutes
    • Exercise in Excel - 20 minutes

  • Topic 4: Phenology

    Crop water productivity is defined on a seasonal basis. If we have information on when the crop was planted and when it was harvested, we have our aggregation period. If not, we can approximate this period from remote sensing. 

    In this topic, you will learn and practice how to:

    4. Identify phenological metrics (start, end of the growing season) from EO data (exercise, Excel, Python)

    This module should take you from 0.5 to 1.5 hours.

    • Video - 5 minutes
    • Reading and questions - 10-20 minutes 
    • Exercise in Excel - 10 minutes (when ready data is used) to 1 hour (when own data is used)

  • Topic 5: CWP estimation

    In this module of the course, you are going to: 

    5. Produce meaningful, growing season-related estimates of CWP (exercise, Python, WaPOR)

    This module does not require any additional theoretical background, therefore it contains only an assignment.

    This module should take you from 10 minutes to 1.5 hours.
    • Exercise in Excel - from 10 minutes (when ready data are used) to 2 hours (when own data have to be downloaded)

  • Topic 6: CWP as an irrigation performance indicator

    Through previous topics you have built an understanding of what crop water productivity is, how to compute it (aggregate and partition GPP to yield, aggregate evapotranspiration, divide) and what challenges there are on the way (phenological metrics, unit conversion). 

    This final topic of the course is aimed at giving you a bigger picture that is behind the CWP numbers and preparing you for the case study in which you are going to:

    6. Conclude on the efficiency of the water management scheme in the study area (case study)

    The case study itself is not an obligatory part of this course but is explained in the Additional follow-up material # 2

    This module should take you 10 minutes
    • Video - 5 minutes
    • Reading - 5 minutes 


  • Additional follow-up material

    This course gave you all the necessary background to continue building your expertise in crop water productivity and plant water use efficiency subject.