Open-Source WebGIS WUEMoCA (Water Use Efficiency Monitor in Central Asia)

Open-Source WebGIS WUEMoCA (Water Use Efficiency Monitor in Central Asia)

March 19, 2018

Open-Source WebGIS for Monitoring the Water Use Efficiency in Central Asia

For sustainable water management in Central Asia, remote sensing products provide independent information on land use, crop productivity and water use efficiency, which is made accessible to local decisionmakers through an online map tool.

The target area consists of the agricultural irrigation areas of the Aral Sea basin (about 9 million ha in total) in southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and northern Afghanistan.

The interactive web map application “Water Use Efficiency Monitor in Central Asia” (WUEMoCA) is designed to improve the use of land and water resources in Central Asian irrigation systems in a sustainable way. The data are based on analysis results from freely accessible climate data and MODIS satellite imagery.

WUEMoCA main view

WUEMoCA main view with map filter (2), selection options (6), spatial (4) (9) and temporal (3) (10) exploration of various indicators (6), download (7) and overview (8) functions. Furthermore: general information in the Header (1), User polygon tool, here not activated (5), button to show Arial map (11).

The visualization concept allows for selection by users

  • 15 indicators (e.g., land use intensity, crop yield, water availability)
  • 10 crop types (e.g., cotton, wheat and rice)
  • 7 aggregation levels (e.g., provinces, districts, hydrological units)
  • 18 years (2000-2017).

Sober numbers are vividly presented in their spatial distribution (as maps) and temporal development (as diagrams).

User interactions for on-the-fly calculations are possible:

  • draw or upload own aggregation polygons (e.g., water supply zones)
  • insert or upload water intake values for a specific area

All results, also user-driven, are exportable for further analysis (e.g., as Shapefile or Excel table).

The applied research project CAWa is characterized by

  • cooperative concept development (indicator definitions, functions, workflows, logic) together with the University of Wuerzburg, Germany and the Scientific Information Center Tashkent, Uzbekistan (SIC ICWC)
  • integration of user requirements from the water management
  • transfer of the system architecture and the know-how into the region

User polygon tool

WUEMoCA User polygon tool (1) (draw or upload polygons, calculate indicators on-the-fly (2), visualize (3) and export the results as Excel or Shapefile) with Water Use Efficiency calculation tool (water intake input form) (4)

Outlook: the new interactive Productivity calculation tool will be integrated soon.

you may also like:

Contribution at SilviLaser Conference in Quebec

Contribution at SilviLaser Conference in Quebec

At SilviLaser 2025 in Québec City, PhD candidate Julia Rieder (EORC, University of Würzburg and staff member of EO4CAM) presented her work on "European Beech under Drought: Effects of Topography, Competition and Soil Water Availability." Her study uses LiDAR to reveal...

EORC at Remote Sensing Symposium in Darmstadt

EORC at Remote Sensing Symposium in Darmstadt

On 2 October 2025, Dr. John Friesen and Dr. Julian Fäth from the Earth Observation Research Cluster (EORC) at the University of Würzburg and staff members of EO4CAM took part in the symposium "Vom Orbit zur Entscheidung: Satellitenfernerkundung in der...

New Team Member at the EORC: Sonja Mass

New Team Member at the EORC: Sonja Mass

Sonja Maas joined the Earth Observation Research Cluster (EORC) in October 2025 as a research assistant for the EO4CAM project. After finishing her bachelor's degree in forestry, Sonja Maas enrolled in the EAGLE M.Sc. program at the University of Würzburg, where she...

EAGLE MSc Student Isabella Metz Wins Prestigious IFHS Student Award

EAGLE MSc Student Isabella Metz Wins Prestigious IFHS Student Award

We are delighted to share the exciting news that our MSc student Isabella Metz has been awarded the 2025 International Federation of Hydrographic Societies (IFHS) Student Award for her outstanding research on: “Analysis of Uncertainties for Error Detection and...

Josipa Subotic joined as a DBU fellow

Josipa Subotic joined as a DBU fellow

We are delighted to welcome Josipa Subotić to the Earth Observation Research Cluster as a DBU fellowship visiting researcher. Since September 2025, she has been working on her project “Detection of Snow Surfaces in the Alps Using Multispectral Satellite Images and...