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The rising demand for water in the transboundary Helmand basin is causing heightened tensions between Afghanistan and Iran concerning the Helmand River with serious environmental, socio-economics and political implications. This intensifies the long-existing transboundary water conflicts between the two countries. To overcome water shortages during dry spells, water reservoirs and storage infrastructure have been constructed in a region experiencing extremely hot and dry climate conditions. Water evaporation from these reservoirs diminishes their storage efficiency. This makes quantification and prediction of water evaporation from these reservoirs a crucial step for water management, accountability and transboundary cooperation in the river basin. In this study, we used satellite remote sensing information of the large water reservoirs in the Helmand basin combined with physically-based modelling …