Water management - free products available for testing A system for monitoring earth surface energy and water balance, developed by EARS Remote Sensing, is now available free of charge for testing. The system operates on the basis of hourly Meteosat reception, to generate image maps of rainfall, net radiation and actual evapotrans... A system for monitoring earth surface energy and water balance, developed by EARS Remote Sensing, is now available free of charge for testing. The system operates on the basis of hourly Meteosat reception, to generate image maps of rainfall, net radiation and actual evapotranspiration. It also produces crop yield and desertification-related products. The system covers the Euro-Mediterranean region and Africa. Products are on a ten-day, monthly or yearly time scale and have the full Meteosat resolution (5km sub satellite) as well as a timeliness of two days. The European energy balance and monitoring system is developed with funding from the Environment and Climate programme, part of the European Commission's Fourth RTD Framework Programme. It uses rainfall and actual evapotranspiration data to investigate near real time water management. The European Topic Centre on Inland Waters (ETC-IW) is now testing the data for run-off modelling of the Danube Basin and the Centro de Estudios Hidrográficos, which is part of CEDEX, is doing the same for the Spanish river catchments. 'There are many other applications. The EWBMS data may be used for regional water balance studies and water distribution planning, or in studies of the fate of agro-chemicals. The satellite data products are also suitable for drought and desertification monitoring, locust early warning and crop yield forecasting', say the system developers, from Delft, The Netherlands. Interested users and researchers may apply for free EWBMS data products for evaluation and testing during the next half year Countries Netherlands
