The growing threat of drought and rising water demand have made accurate forecasts of crop water use critical for farmland water management and sustainability. But limitations in existing models and satellite data pose challenges for precise estimates of evapotranspiration – a combination of evaporation from soil and transpiration from plants. The process is complex and difficult to model, and existing remote-sensing data can't provide accurate, high-resolution information on a daily basis.

The Spanish National Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC) will now provide a publication fund for their corresponding authors publishing in Copernicus' open-access journals.

As of 1 September 2019 the direct settlement of article processing charges (APCs) between the Helmholtz Association and Copernicus Publications will be valid for corresponding authors.