Water Productivity, expressed as the amount of crop yield over the amount of water consumed (kg/m3), has been accepted as the standard to monitor sustainable water management. FutureWater has evaluated various methods, including satellites and Flying Sensors (drones) to monitor Water Productivity for a demonstration project ThirdEye in southern Mozambique.

Monitoring Water Productivity is set as a target for Sustainable Development Goal 6 (“ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”). This new report summaries a demonstration case for the ThirdEye area in southern Mozambique on methods to monitor Water Productivity.

Four different methods (WaPOR, MODIS, Landsat, Flying Sensors) were compared at sub-project level (700 ha) and field level (0.15 ha). Results show that farmers receiving ThirdEye services, based on Flying Sensors (drones), achieve higher Water Productivity compared to farmers not receiving services.

The demonstration study concludes that the four methods to monitor Water Productivity has all advantageous and disadvantageous. Depending on the objective of the monitoring the appropriate method can be selected.