Evapotransportation

 The Idaho Department of Water Resources (IDWR) has worked nine years (since the year 2000) with the University of Idaho's department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering to develop and apply a computer model called METRIC – which stands for Mapping EvapoTranspiration at high Resolution with Internalized Calibration. Evapotranspiration (ET) uses satellite data to compute and map how much water is being emitted or given off by the earth’s surface. It is calculated as the sum of evaporation from the earth's surface and plant transpiration to the atmosphere. Now that’s a lot of big words but here’s where it becomes important. In Idaho, we have non-native plants  that are called noxious weeds. One of these is the Salt Cedar which is capable of drinking 200 gallons of water a day…water taken by a weed.

ET data are critical for settling water-resource conflicts and are especially important for agricultural water issues, since irrigated agriculture accounts for more than 90% of the water-use in Idaho. So this is important, award winning work according to Bob McGlaughlin of The Idaho Department of Water Resources: “Here at the Idaho Department of Water Resources we have a program and it was one of 6 programs out of 700 entries nationwide to win a 2009 Innovations in American Government Award from Harvard University”.