Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ACCWA (Accounting for Climate Change in Water and Agriculture management)
Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2024-12-31
The Mediterranean is among the most sensitive areas to climate change as demonstrated in many studies (IPCC, 2013). The models issued by IPCC cast different scenarios for the Mediterranean Region, but all of them agree on a clear trend in the pattern of some climatic parameters. In terms of the thermal regime, the base scenario from 1980-2000 was used to estimate an increase in average surface temperatures in the range of 2.2 and 5.1°C for the period 2080-2100. For the same period, the models indicated pronounced rainfall regime changes in the Mediterranean and estimated that precipitation over lands might vary between -4% and -27%. The increased temperatures will lead to higher potential evapotranspiration (ET), which in turn will decrease water resources.
Increased rainfall variability and ET rates will compromise irrigation potential and expansion plans and increase competition and conflict over limited water resources. There are significant knowledge gaps and uncertainties about how much water will be available for a complete growing season, how much should be used for scheduling irrigation efficiently and extracted from these regions. The expected impact in rainfed agriculture is a decrease in yield due to heat and water stress and an increase in the likeliwood of crop failure in rainfed crops for maize, millet and sorghum. Ongoing changes in the socio-economic and environmental background of rainfed farmers combined with the expected population growth make timely and reliable information on rainfed crop yield and its spatial variability essential in decision-support for improving food security and livelihoods.
Precipitation projections are uncertain due to high inter-annual variation, but inter-annual and spatial varibaility are expected to increase. It is expected the duration of the rainy season be shorter and summer dry spells be longer increasing agriculture land deterioration and desertification. Temperature and precipitation changing patterns will thus increase hazards linked to environmental conditions such as droughts, floods or crop pests like locust swarms and others transboundary pests outbreaks. In order to reduce the impact of these hazards a critical component is a comprehensive hazards monitoring system that can provide early warning and deliver that information to users in a timely manner.
In this climate change context, ACCWA aims to develop the remote sensing based monitoring tools for agriculture and water management that help risk guidance.
Increased rainfall variability and ET rates will compromise irrigation potential and expansion plans and increase competition and conflict over limited water resources. There are significant knowledge gaps and uncertainties about how much water will be available for a complete growing season, how much should be used for scheduling irrigation efficiently and extracted from these regions. The expected impact in rainfed agriculture is a decrease in yield due to heat and water stress and an increase in the likeliwood of crop failure in rainfed crops for maize, millet and sorghum. Ongoing changes in the socio-economic and environmental background of rainfed farmers combined with the expected population growth make timely and reliable information on rainfed crop yield and its spatial variability essential in decision-support for improving food security and livelihoods.
Precipitation projections are uncertain due to high inter-annual variation, but inter-annual and spatial varibaility are expected to increase. It is expected the duration of the rainy season be shorter and summer dry spells be longer increasing agriculture land deterioration and desertification. Temperature and precipitation changing patterns will thus increase hazards linked to environmental conditions such as droughts, floods or crop pests like locust swarms and others transboundary pests outbreaks. In order to reduce the impact of these hazards a critical component is a comprehensive hazards monitoring system that can provide early warning and deliver that information to users in a timely manner.
In this climate change context, ACCWA aims to develop the remote sensing based monitoring tools for agriculture and water management that help risk guidance.
During ACCWA implementation, the following specific objectives have been fulfilled:
Objective AGRICULTURE MANAGEMENT TOOLS: ACCWA has develop the remote sensing based management and monitoring tools for food security and water & agricultural risk management that allow improving the reliability of decision making regarding water use, yield and hazards in agriculture. The water and agriculture management tools have been defined in accordance with user needs and requirements.
Objective INNOVATIVE EO: To define, develop and implement innovative algorithms to estimate high spatial resolution soil moisture (SM), evapotranspiration (ET) and characterise vegetation status (VEG) from Earth Observation (EO) data.
SM, ET and VEG has been obtained at both high-spatial (field scale) and high-temporal (every week) resolutions by multi-sensor/multi- resolution/multi-wavelength remote sensing data.
Objective VALIDATION: To perform validation experiments on a regular basis using in situ, EO and modelling activities for all ACCWA estimates.
In coordination with the respective experimental sites, intensive field campaigns have been implemented during 2022, 2023 and 2024.
As a result, we have the means to fully validate EO products and water fluxes covering a wide range of surface conditions.
Objective NETWORK: To build a network for inter-sectorial knowledge sharing and long-term collaboration in the field of remote sensing applications for water resources and agriculture management. ACCWA builds on existing or completed European R&D projects aiming at water use, yield and hazards management and the partners have already collaborated in international projects. The framework of this project is strengthening these links and helps reaching institutions and enterprises working in the irrigation sector.
We have established links with more than 20 EU projects, organised 3 project Open Days and a Final International Workshop with an increasing number of experienced attendants.
As a result of these activities, we are putting in place a framework that enables a strong, tightly knit community (scientific/operational; research/industry) in multi-disciplinary water resources research (hydrologists, agronomists, water resources managers, etc.).
Objective CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT: To assess climate change impact in irrigated and rainfed crops in the Mediterranean and Sahel region by developing an innovative coupled modelling framework including water use, crop yield and hazards. The outcomes from that exercise have been largely disseminated in the water and agriculture community but also to the scientific and general community.
Objective OUTREACH: To promote the ACCWA project results, using open workshops and seminars, webinars, scientific peer-review articles, a web-portal, brochures, newsletters and films for the stimulation of results in future operational services.
The following promotion actions have been undertaken:
• Three Open Days
• 9 Workshops
• 3 Specific Trainings, 3 Summer Courses and multiple Field Trainings
• 13 Webinars
• 15 PhD Lectures, 13 PhD on-going
• Presence at hundreds international conferences in tenths of countries
• 58 Publications in peer-reviewed international scientific journals
• One film, 4 articles in non-specialised press, 1 radio interview
• Presence in 19 Brokerage Events and 7 Fairs
As a result, we have seen an increasing number of assistants to open seminars and webinars and we have reinforced ACCWA’s network.
Objective AGRICULTURE MANAGEMENT TOOLS: ACCWA has develop the remote sensing based management and monitoring tools for food security and water & agricultural risk management that allow improving the reliability of decision making regarding water use, yield and hazards in agriculture. The water and agriculture management tools have been defined in accordance with user needs and requirements.
Objective INNOVATIVE EO: To define, develop and implement innovative algorithms to estimate high spatial resolution soil moisture (SM), evapotranspiration (ET) and characterise vegetation status (VEG) from Earth Observation (EO) data.
SM, ET and VEG has been obtained at both high-spatial (field scale) and high-temporal (every week) resolutions by multi-sensor/multi- resolution/multi-wavelength remote sensing data.
Objective VALIDATION: To perform validation experiments on a regular basis using in situ, EO and modelling activities for all ACCWA estimates.
In coordination with the respective experimental sites, intensive field campaigns have been implemented during 2022, 2023 and 2024.
As a result, we have the means to fully validate EO products and water fluxes covering a wide range of surface conditions.
Objective NETWORK: To build a network for inter-sectorial knowledge sharing and long-term collaboration in the field of remote sensing applications for water resources and agriculture management. ACCWA builds on existing or completed European R&D projects aiming at water use, yield and hazards management and the partners have already collaborated in international projects. The framework of this project is strengthening these links and helps reaching institutions and enterprises working in the irrigation sector.
We have established links with more than 20 EU projects, organised 3 project Open Days and a Final International Workshop with an increasing number of experienced attendants.
As a result of these activities, we are putting in place a framework that enables a strong, tightly knit community (scientific/operational; research/industry) in multi-disciplinary water resources research (hydrologists, agronomists, water resources managers, etc.).
Objective CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACT: To assess climate change impact in irrigated and rainfed crops in the Mediterranean and Sahel region by developing an innovative coupled modelling framework including water use, crop yield and hazards. The outcomes from that exercise have been largely disseminated in the water and agriculture community but also to the scientific and general community.
Objective OUTREACH: To promote the ACCWA project results, using open workshops and seminars, webinars, scientific peer-review articles, a web-portal, brochures, newsletters and films for the stimulation of results in future operational services.
The following promotion actions have been undertaken:
• Three Open Days
• 9 Workshops
• 3 Specific Trainings, 3 Summer Courses and multiple Field Trainings
• 13 Webinars
• 15 PhD Lectures, 13 PhD on-going
• Presence at hundreds international conferences in tenths of countries
• 58 Publications in peer-reviewed international scientific journals
• One film, 4 articles in non-specialised press, 1 radio interview
• Presence in 19 Brokerage Events and 7 Fairs
As a result, we have seen an increasing number of assistants to open seminars and webinars and we have reinforced ACCWA’s network.
During ACCWA implementation, the following tools have been developed:
• Water Use Management tools at the basin scale that allow to estimate irrigation systems, irrigation amounts and early crop classification providing all the necessary elements to take informed decisions for water management.
• Drought Monitoring tools based on EO SM at the 1km spatial scale that allow to accurately monitor meteorological, agronomic and hydrological drought (Sanchez and Escorihuela, 2025)
• Locust Forecast tool a real-time application to predict locust presence has been developed and validated (Marescot et al. 2025)
• Yield Forecast tools based on EO based models for yield forecast (Bouras et al. 2020, Khlif et al. 2023, Ablila et al. 2024)
In terms of EO products, ACCWA advances with respect to the state of the art are:
• Radar-based (either monostatic or bistatic radar) SM algorithms (Ouaadi et al. 2020, Zribi et al. 2022)
• SM algorithms based on the disaggregation of SMOS/SMAP data using DISPATCH and land surface temperature data available at finer resolution (Ohja et al. 2021b, Paolini et al. 2022)
• A fused SM algorithm based on both radar- and DISPATCH-based approaches (Ohja et al. 2021a)
• An improved ET estimation based on Sen-ET (Bellvert et al. 2020, Jofre-Čekalović et al. 2022)
• Developing new S1 radar-based VEG algorithms (Ouaadi et al. 2020, Ouaadi et al. 2023)
• Correcting for shadows in WDI estimations from Optical/Thermal Data (Penot and Merlin 2023)
• Water Use Management tools at the basin scale that allow to estimate irrigation systems, irrigation amounts and early crop classification providing all the necessary elements to take informed decisions for water management.
• Drought Monitoring tools based on EO SM at the 1km spatial scale that allow to accurately monitor meteorological, agronomic and hydrological drought (Sanchez and Escorihuela, 2025)
• Locust Forecast tool a real-time application to predict locust presence has been developed and validated (Marescot et al. 2025)
• Yield Forecast tools based on EO based models for yield forecast (Bouras et al. 2020, Khlif et al. 2023, Ablila et al. 2024)
In terms of EO products, ACCWA advances with respect to the state of the art are:
• Radar-based (either monostatic or bistatic radar) SM algorithms (Ouaadi et al. 2020, Zribi et al. 2022)
• SM algorithms based on the disaggregation of SMOS/SMAP data using DISPATCH and land surface temperature data available at finer resolution (Ohja et al. 2021b, Paolini et al. 2022)
• A fused SM algorithm based on both radar- and DISPATCH-based approaches (Ohja et al. 2021a)
• An improved ET estimation based on Sen-ET (Bellvert et al. 2020, Jofre-Čekalović et al. 2022)
• Developing new S1 radar-based VEG algorithms (Ouaadi et al. 2020, Ouaadi et al. 2023)
• Correcting for shadows in WDI estimations from Optical/Thermal Data (Penot and Merlin 2023)