Estimation of water requirement for rice cultivation using satellite data

The impact of climate change on food production in Indonesia is anticipated to be a level where food production in 2050 will decline ranging from 38% to more than ten-folds of the current production, and it is necessary to improve a cultivation management system aiming at increasing rice yield and also the stability. For this improvement, effective use of irrigation water and water distribution management plan is critical and has to be carefully reviewed and designed. In this study, the amount of irrigation water necessary for rice cultivation at each stage of its growth was calculated and reviewed using satellite data acquired in dry cultivation season for the paddy field of West Java, Indonesia. The results of the study make it clear that the new method developed in the study can calculate and estimate the water amount to be required at each growth stage of rice; the requirement amount can be visualized by each pixel of satellite data; also, the change of the water requirement amount can be checked on almost real-time basis.