Evaluation of water requirement for coconut growing with remote sensing technology

Samut Songkhram is one province in Thailand which has coconut cultivation for domestic consumption and export abroad. However in the dry season, will be faced with the problem of using water due to the problem with sea water condition that raised, which the initial solution is to bring fresh water from the upper dams to push saltwater out of the area. Therefore, the data used of fresh water in the area, is important to water management in the upcoming crisis. Evalution of water requirement can assist the location of water demand in dry areas. Satellite data and ground data combined to estimate the volume of water needed. This research the assessment of water requirement for coconut cultivation is mainly aimed to determine the area of coconut growing through remote sensing technology with LANDSAT8 and assess the water demand in the coconut growing area. The result found, the area of coconut cultivation as 74876 Rai, where was analyzed by satellite data of Landsat8 with Supervised Classification method. The accuracy from interpreted data is 92 percent. The determination of water requirements for planting coconut were analyzed from the equation of Penman Monteith, average equal to 458,473,908 cubic meters. The value of Reference Crop Evapotranspiration average ETo is 3.80 mm / day and the coefficient of water use (Crop Coefficient) average Kc is 1.35. This research found the amount of coconut water needs in the early stages of growth with relatively little water demand and gradually increased, and there is no change in water usage.