Remote sensing-based soil water balance for irrigation water accounting at plot and water user association management scale

•FAO56 operational application based on Remote Sensing data for monitoring NIR.•Spatial and temporally distributed Remote Sensing-based Soil Water Balance (RS-SWB).•Spatial and temporally distributed Remote Sensing-based Irrigation Water Accounting.•Pixel-based NIR at the appropriate spatio-temporal scale for water users.•More transparent, reliable, and objective irrigation water accounting.