Evaluating the application of FAO-WaPOR data to support Colombia’s National Water Study on water consumption in the agricultural sector
Laura Alejandra Agudelo Mayorga
Colombia's official water accounting method (ENA) relies on intensive field data and is only updated every four years, making it difficult to capture seasonal variability driven by El Niño and La Niña. This study explores whether freely available satellite data from FAO's WaPOR platform can support more timely and continuous agricultural water monitoring. By combining WaPOR's evapotranspiration products with ENA's crop mask in an open, adapted, and reproducible notebook-Python-based framework, we compare water consumption estimates at the sub-basin level across Colombia for 2020. Results show strong spatial agreement (R² = 0.83) between both methods, with a systematic offset explained by the difference between potential and actual evapotranspiration.
In English
Bakker-Nortzaal