FAO reported in April 2026 on a Tunisian test of higher-resolution WaPOR data within the IREY irrigation advisory system. The application was co-developed by IWMI and Tunisia's National Field Crops Institute.
Researchers compared water-balance simulations for January–April 2025 using daily 10-metre evapotranspiration estimates and the existing 20-metre, ten-day product. Data latency fell from approximately 15 days to two. The faster input identified an irrigation need about a week earlier in late March and avoided a false alert in one short-term forecast comparison.
The pilot kept irrigation quantities and dates identical between model runs. It therefore tests advisory behaviour, rather than proving measured farm water savings. Missing parcel ground-truth data and limited historical forecast availability prevented fuller spatial and season-long validation.
