About
OpenET uses best available science to provide easily accessible satellite-based estimates of evapotranspiration (ET) for improved water management across the western United States.Sustainable water management is one of the most challenging issues of our time, especially in the arid western U.S. Adequate water supplies are crucial to maintaining the health of communities, rivers, and wildlife, and nothing is more important to agriculture’s ability to produce food for the world’s growing population. Maximizing the benefits of our water supplies requires careful measurement of their availability and use. For irrigated agriculture, satellite-based estimates of evapotranspiration (ET) provide a measure of the water used to grow food — the biggest share of water consumption in most arid environments around the world. However, access to ET data has been limited and expensive, keeping it out of the hands of most water users and decision-makers.
OpenET provides open, easily accessible satellite-based ET data for improved water management. The OpenET collaborative includes leading national and international experts in remote sensing of ET, cloud computing, and water policy, partnered with nationally recognized web development teams and leaders in the western agriculture and water management communities.
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The OpenET Team
The OpenET Team includes leading national and international experts in remote sensing of ET, cloud computing, water policy, and water markets, partnered with nationally recognized web development teams and leaders in the western agriculture and water management communities.
OpenET is very grateful to the support it has received from the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation; Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; The Walton Family Foundation; Windward Fund; The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment; Lyda Hill Philanthropies; The Laney and Pasha Thornton Foundation; the Water Funder Initiative; Desert Research Institute Maki Endowment; the North, Central, and South Delta Water Agencies; the NASA Western Water Applications Office and the NASA Applied Sciences Program. In-kind support is provided by partners in the agricultural and water management communities, Google Earth Engine, and the Water Funder Initiative.
Dr. Robyn Grimm
Environmental Defense Fund
Director
Climate Resilient Water Systems
Robyn serves as Project Director and leads on the ground implementation with project partners, coordination among project teams, and development of key ... Read Bio
Forrest Melton
NASA / CSU Monterey Bay
Senior Research Scientist
Forrest serves as the technical co-lead for the project along with Justin Huntington. Forrest and Justin lead the design of the overall architecture and ... Read Bio
Dr. Justin Huntington
Desert Research Institute
Research Professor
Justin serves as the technical co-lead for the project with Forrest Melton. Justin co-leads coordination and technical support for ET software ... Read Bio
Dr. Jamie Herring
HabitatSeven
President
Jamie has been the executive digital producer for a variety of environmental information products with clients ranging from large multi-lateral ... Read Bio
Dr. Maurice Hall
Environmental Defense Fund
Vice President – Resilient Water Systems
EDF’s Water Program
Maurice advises on the overall strategy and implementation of the project, with a focus on building support among agencies, policy makers and potential ... Read Bio
Dr. Tyler A. Erickson
Senior Developer Advocate
In this role, Tyler fosters collaborations with researchers from academia, NGO’s, and governmental organizations seeking to capitalize on Earth Engine’s ... Read Bio
Matt Bromley
Desert Research Institute
Assistant Research Scientist
Matt serves as member of the technical support team where he leads in the refinement and curation of agricultural field boundaries and land cover data as ... Read Bio
Lee Johnson
NASA/CSU Monterey Bay
Senior Research Scientist
Lee is a Senior Research Scientist and adjunct faculty member in the College of Science at CSU Monterey Bay, and is stationed in the Earth Science ... Read Bio
Jordan Harding
HabitatSeven
Chief Technology Officer
Jordan is the Chief Technology Officer at HabitatSeven where he leads innovation in the areas of big data delivery and visualization. Jordan has worked in ... Read Bio
Alberto Guzman
NASA/CSU Monterey Bay
Senior Software Engineer
Alberto Guzman is a Senior Software Engineer with NASA Ames and California State University Monterey Bay as part of the NASA ARC-CREST agreement. Alberto ... Read Bio
Will Carrara
NASA / CSU Monterey Bay
Senior Software Engineer
As a core backend developer for OpenET, Will is jointly responsible for the advancement and maintenance of the OpenET Raster API. In his current role, ... Read Bio
Charles Morton
Desert Research Institute
Assistant Research Scientist
Charles leads multi-model software engineering and development, supports ET modeling teams with Google Earth Engine API ... Read Bio
Dr. Britta Daudert
Desert Research Institute
Assistant Research Scientist of Climatology
Britta leads development of the OpenET back-end data queries and time series tools in close coordination algorithms teams. Britta has extensive experience ... Read Bio
Jody Hansen
Desert Research Institute
Assistant Research Scientist, Web Application Developer
Jody is a software engineer at DRI who is the sole developer of the OpenET geodatabase API and user API, including maintaining those systems both on DRI ... Read Bio
Gabe Parrish
USGS EROS
Remote Sensing Scientist
Gabe is a member of the OpenET model development team and supports implementation of the SSEBop model on Earth Engine. He works as a contractor for the ... Read Bio
Dr. Martha Anderson
USDA Agricultural Research Service
Research Physical Scientist
Martha conducts research on mapping water, energy, and carbon land-surface fluxes at field to continental scales using thermal remote sensing, with ... Read Bio
Dr. Gabriel Senay
USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center
Research Physical Scientist
Gabriel is co-located with the USGS North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center, Colorado and maintains a Faculty Affiliate position with Colorado ... Read Bio
Dr. Mitchell Schull
University of Maryland
Post-Doctoral Associate
Mitchell is currently working to implement the ALEXI/DisALEXI modeling framework into an open-source environment for further collaboration with global ... Read Bio
Dr. Christopher Hain
NASA
Research Scientist
Christopher is interested in thermal infrared remote sensing with applications in surface energy balance modeling, soil moisture retrieval, hydrologic ... Read Bio
Dr. Joshua Fisher
UCLA
Scientist
Josh is the developer of the PT-JPL evapotranspiration model (Fisher et al., 2008). PT-JPL is a leading global-scale remote sensing ET model and is the ... Read Bio
Gregory Halverson
NASA JPL
Scientific Applications Software Engineer
Gregory Halverson supports the technical implementation of PT-JPL, and develops geospatial data processing software for remote sensing systems. Other ... Read Bio
Dr. Yun Yang
University of Maryland
Assistant Research Scientist
Yun is a member of the OpenET ALEXI/DisALEXI model team. Her research interests focus on detecting and monitoring drought impact through ... Read Bio
Dr. Yanghui Kang
University of California, Berkeley
Postdoctoral Researcher
Yanghui is a member of the OpenET ALEXI/DisALEXI model team. She developed the CONUS Landsat Leaf Area Index mapping algorithm and implemented the thermal ... Read Bio
Dr. Richard G. Allen
University of Idaho
Professor of Water Resources Engineering
Rick is involved with the development of the OpenET METRIC application and its implementation and testing. He has been a ... Read Bio
Peter ReVelle
University of Nebraska – Lincoln
Remote Sensing Specialist
Peter is a member of the eeMETRIC development team and supports implementation of the METRIC model on Google Earth Engine. He has contributed to the ... Read Bio
Dr. Ayse Kilic
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Professor
School of Natural Resources and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Ayse leads the development of the OpenET METRIC application and its implementation and testing. She has been a co-leader ... Read Bio
Mac Friedrichs
USGS EROS
Remote Sensing Scientist
Mac is a member of the OpenET model development team and supports implementation of the SSEBop model on Google Earth Engine. Since 2012, he has worked ... Read Bio
Dr. Anderson Ruhoff
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Professor
Anderson Ruhoff is a professor in Hydrology and Remote sensing of the terrestrial water cycle at the Institute of Hydraulic Research (IPH) from the ... Read Bio
Leonardo Laipelt
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Assistant Research Scientist
Leonardo Laipelt is a member of the OpenET geeSEBAL model team and supports its implementation and testing. He is an Environmental Engineer with ... Read Bio
Bruno Comini de Andrade
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Assistant Research Scientist
Bruno Comini is a member of the OpenET geeSEBAL model team and supports its implementation and testing. He has experience working with datasets of various ... Read Bio
Conor Doherty
Stanford University
PhD Candidate
Conor Doherty is a PhD candidate in Environmental Engineering at Stanford University and a contributor to the SIMS model. Conor's research focuses on ... Read Bio
Margot Malloy
CK Blueshift, LLC
Principal
Margot serves as the lead consultant managing the OpenET project’s transition from a four-year philanthropically sponsored project to a self-sustaining ... Read Bio
Rachel O’Connor
Environmental Defense Fund
Senior Analyst
Rachel is a Senior Analyst with the Water Program at Environmental Defense Fund, and supports use case development, outreach and communications efforts ... Read Bio
Garshaw Amidi-Abraham
Environmental Defense Fund
Senior Specialist
Garshaw is a Senior Specialist with the Climate Resilient Water Systems program at Environmental Defense Fund. He supports ... Read Bio
Dr. John Volk
Desert Research Institute
Postdoctoral Scholar, Software Developer
John leads the intercomparison and accuracy assessment between OpenET satellite-based ET and ground-based measurements. Since 2018 he has developed and ... Read Bio
Chris Pearson
Desert Research Institute
Associate Research Scientist, Hydrology
Chris provides technical review and support to the OpenET intercomparison and accuracy assessment teams. Since 2020 he has developed growing season timing ... Read Bio
Blake Minor
Desert Research Institute
Assistant Research Scientist, Hydrologist
Blake works collaboratively on the intercomparison and accuracy assessment between OpenET satellite-based ET and ground-based measurements. Since 2019 he ... Read Bio
Christian Dunkerly
Desert Research Institute
Software Developer
Christian works collaboratively on developing the accuracy assessment of satellite-based ET against ground-based observations. He also prepared a ... Read Bio
David Ketchum
University of Montana
PhD Candidate, Hydrologist
Montana Department of Natural Resources
David leads the development of the OpenET agricultural field boundary processing pipeline and contributes data from ... Read Bio
Thomas Ott
Desert Research Institute
Assistant Research Scientist, Hydrologist
Thomas works collaboratively on testing and visualizing OpenET satellite-based ET results in the Google Earth Engine API. (MS, Hydrogeology, University of ... Read Bio