Abstract

Dehesas are highly valuable agro-forestry ecosystems, widely distributed over Mediterranean-type climate areas, which play a key role in rural development, basing their productivity on a sustainable use of multiple resources (crops, livestock, wildlife, etc.). The information derived from remote sensing based models addressing ecosystem water consumption, at different scales, can be used by institutions and private landowners to support management decisions. In this study, the Two-Source Energy Balance (TSEB) model is analyzed over two Spanish dehesa areas integrating multiple satellites (MODIS and Landsat) for estimating water use (ET), vegetation ground cover, leaf area and phenology. Instantaneous latent heat (LE) values are derived on a regional scale and compared with eddy covariance tower (ECT) measurements, yielding accurate results (RMSD_MODIS Las Majadas 44 Wm⁻², Santa Clotilde RMSD_MODIS 47 Wm⁻² and RMSD_Landsat 64 Wm⁻²). Daily ET(mm) is estimated using daily return interval of MODIS for both study sites and compared with the flux measurements of the ECTs, with RMSD of 1 mm day⁻¹ over Las Majadas and 0.99 mm day⁻¹ over Santa Clotilde. Distributed ET over Andalusian dehesa (15% of the region) is successfully mapped using MODIS images, as an approach to monitor the ecosystem status and the vegetation water stress on a regular basis. View Full-Text