The Value of Using Hydrological Datasets for Water Allocation Decisions: Earth Observations, Hydrological Models, and Seasonal Forecasts

Abstract

Over the past five years I have been working towards the completion of this dissertation. Back in 2014, I was working in Costa Rica after my MSc studies in IHE-Delft. Micha suggested to start a full-time PhD research, which meant that I had to come back to the Netherlands. I resigned to my job and I accepted the PhD challenge. It has been the biggest challenge until now. Now that it is over, I want to thank many people that helped and supported me along the way. Certainly, without them, this work would have been impossible to finish successfully. I would like to deeply thank Micha Werner and Charlotte de Fraiture for offering me the opportunity to carry out this PhD research in IHE-Delft and Wageningen University. Your guidance and scientific advice was the cornerstone of this successful PhD dissertation. I am grateful for your constant support, encouragement and guidance. Micha, thank you for always motivating me to improve my work and target the level of quality that is required to obtain a PhD. More than an excellent mentor, you are truly an extraordinary person. Charlotte, thank you for your guidance, advice and patience. Thanks for your efforts to help our Land and Water group to write better papers and get our message across. Also, special thanks to Erasmo Rodríguez for offering the opportunity to do an internship in the National University in Colombia. Your guidance and scientific advice in hydrological modelling has been extremely valuable. Thanks to Poolad Karimi for offering your help since the beginning and sharing valuable references and advice in irrigation management. Special thanks to all members of the evaluation committee. It is an honor to have all of you assessing this PhD work. Also, thanks to all the scientific experts who reviewed the publications included in this thesis. I gratefully acknowledge the EartH2Observe project for funding this PhD research, including all the trips, conferences and publications. It has given me the opportunity to work with great and amazing experts from all around the world. Thanks to the incredible team of the Water Resources Research Group of National University of Colombia (GIREH) in Bogotá, especially to Erasmo, Inés, Albeiro, David, Nicolás, Pedro Felipe y Pedro Javier. Thanks for our scientific discussions and social events in Bogotá. Also, thanks to CSIRO Land and Water team in Canberra, Australia. Special thanks to

High-Resolution Estimation of Methane Emissions from Boreal and Pan-Arctic Wetlands Using Advanced Satellite Data

“…These datasets are derived from missions such as the European Space Agency's Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) [39], NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive ((SMAP) [40]), and the European Space Agency Sentinel-1 [41], which were specifically designed to measure SM. Beck et al [42] conducted an assessment of different satellite and model-based SM products and found that SMAP outperformed other datasets when compared with in situ SM measurements. Zhang et al [17] assimilated SMAP SM data into a terrestrial carbon cycle model and found that it helped reduce uncertainty in carbon flux estimates.…”