NASA Expands OpenET Across the Amazon Basin as Part of Open Science Initiative

The research teams at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil are working on a new tool called OpenET-Brazil to help farmers in Brazil develop more resilient farming systems. This tool aims to assist farmers in managing changes in the water cycle, dealing with droughts, and adapting to a changing climate. By providing data on water consumption and evapotranspiration at the field scale, OpenET-Brazil will use open-source models, Google Earth Engine, and publicly available satellite data from NASA and the USGS.

OpenET-Brazil is based on the same tools and approach as OpenET, which was developed for the western United States through a collaboration involving NASA, USGS, Environmental Defense Fund, Desert Research Institute, Google Earth Engine, HabitatSeven, and several universities. This new online tool will be beneficial for Brazilian water agencies, farmers associations, and non-governmental organizations by offering satellite-based monitoring of evapotranspiration and water use.

OpenET utilizes an open science approach to provide satellite-based information on water consumption on a field-by-field basis and at different intervals such as daily, monthly, and yearly. Prior to the development of OpenET, there was no cost-effective operational system for measuring and distributing evapotranspiration data at the individual field scale across the western United States.

The potential impact of OpenET is evident in the success it has had in enhancing collaboration between farmers, ranchers, and water resource managers in the United States. The project scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Forrest Melton, is optimistic about the possibilities of using OpenET in Brazil to advance water resource management in the Amazon basin and potentially on a global scale. The user-driven approach, open-source models, freely available data services, and data visualization tools of OpenET have the potential to transform the way water resources are managed in Brazil and beyond.