Estimating agricultural irrigation water consumption for the High Plains aquifer region with integrated energy- and water-balance evapotranspiration modeling approaches

Estimation of irrigation water use provides essential information for the management and conservation of agricultural water resources. Conventionally, water use data are created based on reports and surveys from water users, whereas manual records may not be complete due to lacking flow meters, measurement gaps, inconsistent methods across regions, and time- and cost-consuming data processing. Alternatively, spatially explicit estimation of irrigation water use can be conducted efficiently using remote sensing evapotranspiration (ET) modeling approaches. In this study, we created a gridded blue water evapotranspiration (BWET) dataset to estimate historical irrigation water consumption (1986 – 2020) in the croplands across the United States High Plains aquifer region. The BWET data were generated by integrating an energy-balance ET model [Operational Simplified Surface Energy Balance model (SSEBop)] and a water-balance ET model [Vegetation ET model (VegET)]. BWET in croplands indicates crop consumptive use of irrigation water extracted from surface water and groundwater resources. The BWET estimates were compared with reported irrigation water use data for all counties within the aquifer region. The results revealed high agreement between growing season (May – September) BWET and annual water withdrawal at county level. Specifically, correlation coefficients of volumetric BWET and water withdrawal were 0.90 and 0.96, respectively, for the entire aquifer region and western Kansas. The timeseries of BWET and water withdrawal showed similar temporal trends and high covariations. The BWET estimates were systematically lower than the water withdrawal measurements, which was primarily attributed to blue water losses in the irrigation system. The irrigation efficiency, calculated as the ratio of BWET to water withdrawal depth, was 0.57 and 0.74 for the entire aquifer region and western Kansas, respectively. This study demonstrates the capability of using satellite-based ET models (e.g., SSEBop and VegET) to efficiently estimate crop water consumption and evaluate irrigation efficiency at landscape, county, and regional scales. • Blue water evapotranspiration (ET) accounts for consumptive use of irrigation water. • Blue water ET is estimated by integrating satellite-based SSEBop and VegET models. • Blue water ET data (1986–2020) were created for croplands in the High Plains region. • High correlations (>0.9) between blue water ET and water withdrawal were discovered. • Irrigation efficiency was evaluated using the ratio of blue water ET to withdrawal.