The need for an instrument capable of measuring water-vapor fluxes over mixed canopy and large areas has long been recognized. Such a device would greatly enhance the study of evapotranspiration processes and has great practical value for water management. To address this problem, a scanning water Raman lidar has been designed and constructed. Analytical methods have also been developed to take advantage of the type of information that this lidar can generate. The lidar is able to measure the absolute water content and calculate the evaporative flux quickly over relatively large areas. This capability provides new opportunities for the study of microscale atmospheric processes. The variogram data indicate that the spatial sampling size must be of the order of 10 m if fluxes and scalars are to be properly represented. Examples of data are presented.

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