Friday, January 28, 2022
CapitalPress.com
Pioneering evapotranspiration mapping from space
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
RICK ALLEN
Farmers and ranchers are
hearing a lot about NASA’s
OpenET and its ability to
make critical water data free
and available for water man-
agers in 17 western states.
But they might not know
the new online platform that
uses satellites to estimate the
water consumption of crops
and other plants builds on
the pioneering work of Rick
Allen, a University of Idaho
water resources engineer,
and the Idaho Department of
Water Resources.
Age: 69
Position: Professor of wa-
ter resources engineer-
ing, University of Idaho
Location: Kimberly
Research and Extension
Center
Education: Ph.D., civil
engineering, University
of Idaho, 1984; master’s
degree, agricultural
engineering, University
of Idaho, 1977; bache-
lor’s degree, agricultural
engineering, Iowa State
University, 1974
Evapotranspiration
Allen and his research team
at the Kimberly Research and
Extension Center, working
closely with IDWR, devel-
oped a physics-based model
using satellite data to com-
pute and map evapotranspi-
ration, or ET. The model is
named METRIC — Mapping
Evapotranspiration at High
Resolution with Internalized
Calibration.
Evapotranspiration
includes water evaporation
from the land and water tran-
spiration from plants.
The work was funded by
a National Aeronautics and
Space Administration grant,
and Allen’s team began work-
ing on the project in 2000.
IDWR was an “eager user”
because it knew there would
be challenges among ground-
water and surface water users,
Allen said.
“Idaho was really the fi rst
state to use satellite-based ET
data,” he said.
For its work, the team
received the Innovations
in American Government
Award from Harvard Uni-
versity’s Kennedy School of
Government in 2009. That
early work led to NASA’s
OpenET.
That platform off ers six
diff erent ET mapping models,
Courtesy of Rick Allen
Rick Allen views evapotranspiration maps of southern Idaho.
including METRIC, and it is
free to anyone who needs that
information, he said.
“It allows people to eas-
ily compare or average all six
models together to get a con-
sistent estimate of ET,” he
said.
Allen is a member of the
OpenET Consortium and was
a member of the NASA Land-
sat Science Team from 2007
to 2017. That team helped
guide the development of
future satellites and applica-
tions of satellite data, he said.
“I’ve really enjoyed being
able to work with NASA,
benefi ting from all the sat-
ellite technology they’ve
designed and launched over
the years,” he said. “I’ve
also enjoyed working with
the state of Idaho and seeing
our developments put into
action for eff ective water
resources management.”
Farming roots
Allen grew up on a corn
and soybean farm in north-
west Iowa. The family also
fed cattle and hogs, and he
was in charge of the hogs.
“I wanted to stay tied to
agriculture but also wanted to
do something technical,” he
said.
After getting a master’s
degree in agricultural engi-
neering at the University of
Idaho in 1977, he went to
work at the university’s Kim-
berly Research and Exten-
sion Center in south-central
Idaho as a research associate.
His time there was divided
between ET estimation and
irrigation management and
evaluation and irrigation sys-
tem design.
In 1984, he went to
Iowa State University as a
researcher and teacher. In
1986, he moved on to Utah
State University where he also
did research and teaching.
He likes teaching, but it
also entailed more stress than
research.
“I think I was fairly good
at it, but I didn’t want to con-
tinue it for my entire career,”
he said.
In 1998, he returned to
full-time research at the Uni-
versity of Idaho.
He’s worked in general
irrigation, the relationship
between surface water and
groundwater and irrigation
design for the Irrigation Asso-
ciation, an international orga-
nization, and was named its
Person of the Year in 2016.
He’s written numerous
publications and was lead
author of the Food and Agri-
culture Organization’s “Crop
Evapotranspiration”
man-
ual, which has become a
global standard on crop water
requirements. He was also
co-editor of the American
Society of Civil Engineers’
practices manual “Evapo-
transpiration and Irriga-
tion Water Requirements,” a
source standard that is widely
used in irrigation litigation in
the U.S.
He’s also spent quite a
lot of time in many coun-
tries helping to review
research programs and teach-
ing short courses on irriga-
tion systems design and water
management.
“I’ve really enjoyed see-
ing the technology evolution
in irrigation, all the electron-
ics and sensors,” he said.
This story fi rst appeared
Dec. 3, 2021.
Research interest:
Evapotranspiration,
irrigation water require-
ments, satellite image
processing in water
resources, hydrologic
water balances, impacts
of water conservation,
center pivot design and
operation, weather data
quality and processing,
evapotranspiration mea-
surement
Affi liations: OpenET
Consortium, member;
NASA ECOSTRESS Science
Team, member; NASA/
USGS Landsat Science
Team, past member
Publications: 212, prima-
ry author on 78
Awards: Numerous,
including Innovations in
American Governance
Award, Harvard Univer-
sity’s Kennedy School of
Government; Arid Lands
Hydraulic Engineering
and Royce Tipton awards,
American Society of Civil
Engineers; 2016 Irrigation
Association Person of the
Year (international)
Family: Wife; three
grown children; two
grandchildren
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