Identifying downstream gains from local losses: A new set of methods for tracking water reuse across river basins

Downstream reuse of previously withdrawn water resources is a common phenomenon across river basins worldwide, particularly those with (semi-)arid climate conditions and intensive water resources development. Water reuse often occurs unplanned, remains undetected, and as a result is insufficiently considered in water saving attempts, water...

Internal processes in hydrological models: A glance at the Meuse basin from space

Contemplating the Meuse or any other river of the world, one may wonder about the journey of rain in becoming river. This fascinates hydrologists, as they develop theories to understand movement, storage and release of water through the landscape across climates. These theories are translated to hydrological models, which describe the complex...

Monitoring Aerosol ­ Cloud Interactions in Liquid Water Clouds

This thesis presents a new method for the continuous observation of aerosol-cloud interactions with ground-based remote sensing instruments. The described method is based on the measurements from UV lidar, radar and radiometer. All of those instruments are capable of obtaining continuous, high-resolution measurements. In order to facilitate its...

Radar remote sensing of wind vector and turbulence intensity fields from raindrop backscattering

Scanning radars are promising sensors for atmospheric remote sensing, giving potential to retrieve parameters that characterize the local air dynamics during rain. For the observation of air motion, radars are relying on the backscatter of particles, which can, for example, be raindrops or insects. To measure wind vectors and turbulence...

Water stress detection using radar

Vegetation is a crucial part of the water and carbon cycle. Through photosynthesis carbon is assimilated for biomass production, and oxygen is released into the atmosphere. During this process, water is transpired through the stomata, and is redistributed in the plant. Transpired water is refilled by uptake of water from the root zone in the...

Moisture in the topsoil: From large-scale observations to small-scale process understanding

The boundary that separates the earth from the atmosphere is a crucial zone of study for meteorology and hydrology. Here, solar energy is partitioned into sensible heat which drives atmospheric circulation, latent heat needed for evaporation from the soil and transpiration of vegetation, and soil heat which warms the subsurface. Precipitation is...

Retrieval of liquid water cloud properties from ground-based remote sensing observations

Accurate ground-based remotely sensed microphysical and optical properties of liquid water clouds are essential references to validate satellite-observed cloud properties and to improve cloud parameterizations in weather and climate models. This requires the evaluation of algorithms for retrieval of cloud microphysical and optical properties...

Water Accounting Plus for Water Resources Reporting and River Basin Planning

This thesis introduces Water Accounting Plus (WA+), which is a new framework designed to provide explicit spatial information on water depletion and net withdrawal processes in complex river basins. WA+ is a simple, yet comprehensive and understandable water accounting framework that provides a standardized way of data collection and a...

Integrating GIS, remote sensing and mathematical modelling for surface water quality management in irrigated watersheds

The intensive uses of limited water resources, the growing population rates and the various increasing human activities put high and continuous stresses on these resources. Major problems affecting the water quality of rivers, streams and lakes may arise from inadequately treated sewage, poor land use practices, inadequate controls on the...

Benchmarking water productivity in agriculture and the scope for improvement - remote sensing modelling from field to global scale

Agriculture is the largest consumer and water. In the context of an increasing population and less water available for the agricultural sector, the water productivity needs to be sustained or increased to secure food security. This study provides benchmark values for water productivity for the major crops globally. Data were obtained from a...

Regional vegetation water effects on satellite soil moisture estimations for West Africa

Soil moisture information is a vital parameter for water resources planning and food production. In particular for West Africa, where income largely depends on rainfed agriculture, reliable information on available soil water is required for modeling and prediction. Over large areas and, specifically, for data scarce regions, satellite soil...

Displacement parameter estimation using permanent scatterer interferometry

Contrast enhancement for depolarizing radar targets

Architectures for Real-Time On-Board Synthetic Aperture Radar Processing

Ground-based remote sensing of precipitation using a multi-polarized FM-CW Doppler radar