Spatio-Temporal Dynamics of Climatological Variables in the Aid of Decision Making for Irrigated Agriculture

The knowledge of the spatial-temporal dynamics of evapotranspiration is of great importance for the accomplishment of agroclimatic zoning and, therefore, for the design of irrigation systems and management of water use in irrigated perimeters. In this context, this study aimed to generate, with the aid of geotechnologies, information that can support irrigation systems planning and design, based on the temporal distribution of daily climatological normals and on evapotranspiration mapping for the irrigated perimeter of Gorutuba/MG. Climatic data were obtained from the meteorological station of the National Institute of Meteorology (INMET) of the municipality of Janaúba/MG in the period from 1985 to 2014. It was verified the non-tendentiousness and the temporal dependence of the climate data using variogram analysis and the temporal dependence index, respectively. For the interpolation, it was used ordinary kriging. The evapotranspiration mapping was conducted from 180 monthly images, from 2000 to 2014, of the MODIS sensor MOD16A product. The results generated for the irrigated perimeter provided relevant information for decision making of the irrigated agriculture management.