Assessment of consumption and availability of water in the upper Omo-Gibe basin, Ethiopia

Abstract

Understanding water balance components is imperative for proper policy and decision making, specifically in the upper part of the Omo-Gibe basin (UOGB) Ethiopia. The objective of this study is to explore the possibility of assessing consumption and availability of water using freely available satellite data and secondary data. Using twenty-three rain gauge stations data, a spatial average of rainfall was computed using the Thiessen polygon approach. Actual evapotranspiration (ETa) was estimated through the Surface Energy Balance System (SEBS). Input data used are, 16 clouds free Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) images covering the study area for estimation of the spatial distribution of actual evapotranspiration covering the whole cropping year from the months of November 2003 to October 2004. Additionally, Priestly and Taylor’s approach was used to estimate reference evapotranspiration (ET<inf>0</inf>). For the study period, the result of estimated precipitation and ETa showed that the UOGB received 41,080 mm3 of precipitation, while 24,135 mm3 become evapotranspired. The assessed outflow from the basin is 17.6% of the precipitation and demonstrated that water is a scares resource in the UOGB. © 2019, Saudi Society for Geosciences.