Climate change and rapid population growth are already putting increasing demand and pressure on the world's freshwater resources. Irrigated agriculture is responsible for about 70% of global freshwater withdrawals, consuming the most amount of water. However, the diverted water in irrigation systems is often not utilized efficiently because of poor water management at different spatial scales, resulting in a system efficiency of only 30–50% in most Asian countries. Typically, improving water management in irrigated areas requires accurate information on various water balance parameters while also considering a changing climate across different spatial scales. There have been technical limitations in getting accurate and reliable information on various key water balance parameters with the conventional approaches used in the recent past. In the twenty-first century, considerable advances have been made in using satellite imagery, including processing and geospatial algorithms, to estimate hydro-meteorological fluxes and relevant components at different spatial scales. This paper provides a perspective on the application of innovative and non-conventional approaches to water resources management in the Murray Darling basin, Australia, the Indus basin, Pakistan and the Amu Darya basin, Uzbekistan. Examples of the state-of-the-art tools described in this paper include: (i) using geoinformatics to monitor the diagnostic and operational performance of large irrigation schemes; (ii) quantifying groundwater and surface water to better manage these two resources using geoinformatics; (iii) forecasting irrigation supply and demand at high spatial and temporal scales using hydrological modelling based on the nodal network; (iv) forecasting crop yield production by satellite remote sensing. The approaches in this study clearly demonstrate that new monitoring and planning tools and methods are highly effective in improving irrigation water management in the ‘space age’ (for the purposes of this paper, space age refers to a period in which earth observation satellites are available to accurately monitor agricultural practices and water balance parameters such as soil moisture and evapotranspiration). The application of these innovative tools can assist in strategizing, diagnosing, monitoring and improving the performance of irrigation systems to grow more crop per drop of water while minimizing environmental impacts and dealing with climate change impacts.

中文翻译：

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观点：太空时代的灌溉水管理

气候变化和人口快速增长已经对世界淡水资源的需求和压力不断增加。灌溉农业占全球淡水抽取量的 70%，消耗的水量最多。然而，由于不同空间尺度的水资源管理不善，灌溉系统中的引水往往得不到有效利用，导致大多数亚洲国家的系统效率仅为 30-50%。通常，改善灌溉区的水管理需要有关各种水平衡参数的准确信息，同时还要考虑不同空间尺度的气候变化。使用最近使用的传统方法在获得有关各种关键水平衡参数的准确和可靠信息方面存在技术限制。在 21 世纪，在使用卫星图像（包括处理和地理空间算法）来估计不同空间尺度的水文气象通量和相关分量方面取得了相当大的进展。本文提供了在澳大利亚墨累达令盆地、巴基斯坦印度河盆地和乌兹别克斯坦阿姆河盆地应用创新和非常规方法进行水资源管理的观点。本文中描述的最先进工具的示例包括： (i) 使用地理信息学来监测大型灌溉计划的诊断和运营绩效；(ii) 量化地下水和地表水，以便利用地理信息学更好地管理这两种资源；(iii) 使用基于节点网络的水文模型预测高空间和时间尺度的灌溉供需；(iv) 通过卫星遥感预测作物产量。本研究中的方法清楚地表明，新的监测和规划工具和方法在改善“太空时代”的灌溉水管理方面非常有效（在本文中，太空时代是指地球观测卫星可用的时期准确监测农业实践和水分平衡参数，如土壤水分和蒸散量）。这些创新工具的应用有助于制定战略、诊断、