Openet planning openet software system data, application programming interface, and precision and accuracy reporting development, integration, and enhancements

This Cooperative Agreement award from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) under the Assistance to State Water Resources Research Institutes program (CFDA 15.805) provides $875,000 in funding to the Desert Research Institute (DRI) at the Nevada System of Higher Education. The key objectives are to: 1) integrate evapotranspiration (ET) water use estimates into national and regional hydrologic modeling, 2) advance open water evaporation estimation and system integration, 3) improve data processing, requirements, and metadata documentation, 4) assess accuracy and uncertainties, and 5) enhance web application visualization and data exploration capabilities for the OPENET evapotranspiration mapping system. DRI will collaborate with Texas A&M University as a sub-recipient to support intercomparisons of open water evaporation estimates and identify opportunities to expand the OPENET system. The award period is October 1, 2023 through September 30, 2025.

Activities

The goals of this project are to research and advance 1) integration of ET water use estimates into national and reginal scale hydrologic modeling, 2) open water evaporation estimation and system integration, 3) data processing, requirements, and metadata documentation, 4) understanding and documentation of accuracy and uncertainties, 5) effective precipitation and system integration, and 6) web application visualization data exploration. DRI will work closely and collaboratively with USGS and openet consortium members to research and advance ET mapping capabilities and integration. Deliverables and expected outcomes: deliverables and outcomes include 1) water use and hydrologic model support including production of climate and ET datasets for estimating withdrawals and consumptive use in the USGS national water model, 2) geodatabase development for large data queries of ET for irrigated lands, 3) open water evaporation advancement and development of white paper outlining intercomparisons and plan for integrating new open water evaporation within openet, 4) implementation of low latency workflows and associated software release and documentation, 5) contribution to best practices manual and training materials and white paper, 6) contribution to development of a 5-year plan, 7) development of metadata for openet products, 8) uncertainty and accuracy assessment and associated draft manuscript, 8) improvement of GAP-filling algorithms, 8) effective precipitation advancement and documentation, and 9) ET data production and data release with data documentation. Intended beneficiary(IES) the intended beneficiaries of this project are water agencies, agricultural producers, and the public. The quantification of ET is necessary for irrigation water management, estimating past and future streamflow depletions stemming from irrigation activities, basin-wide water balance estimates, and consumptive water use reporting. Subrecipient activities texas a m university will support DRI in 1) assessing intercomparisons of over water evaporation estimates using the lake evaporation model (LEM) to openet estimates and in-situ data, 2) identify opportunities to add lakes and reservoirs to ongoing work with NASA and reclamation that USGS is interested in, 3) develop white paper outlining results from task 1 and 2, and detail plan to expand operational LEM simulations and potential integration within openet.