With future climatic scenarios foreseeing increased crop water demands and reduced irrigation water availability, a deeper knowledge on the dynamics of water uptake and translocation inside plants is needed. Little is known about the time interval existing between the irrigation water supply and the presence of irrigation water inside trees, and whether the dripper localization can affect water uptake

Rice is one of the most important staple foods in the world. In Europe, Italy is the main producer of rice, with almost all production concentrated in the northeast of the country. Traditionally, rice is grown in fields that are flooded from before planting until just before harvest. This water management technique requires a great deal of labour for farmers who have to manually adjust the inlet and

Real-timely monitoring of the crop water status can improve irrigation scheduling to increase water saving and enhance agricultural sustainability, whereas the canopy temperature measured by thermal imaging is an essential indicator for determining the rice water status. The primary goal of this study was to propose a new temperature index based on the temporal variance of the daily temperature and

Overapplication of nitrogen fertilizer and water in vegetable production is popular and serious in China and other developing countries, leading to severe environmental pollution. To date, most model-based decision support systems, which are believed to be powerful tools for improving fertilizer and water management in vegetable production, have been established by developed countries, and the weather

Food security is an important pre-requisite for human well-being; however, water shortages and poor quality of arable land threaten food security in the North China Plain (NCP). Subsoiling and proper irrigation can improve soil structure and increase crop yield. This study investigated the effects of two tillage methods (rotary tillage at 15 cm depth, R15; subsoiling at 35 cm depth, S35) combined with

The ridge-furrow supplementary irrigation (RFI) system is an important method to improve water use efficiency (WUE), thus alleviate water shortage. However, appropriate amounts of supplementary irrigation in wheat production in Loess Plateau of China remain unclear. Therefore, a three-year field experiment was performed with five treatments to determine the appropriate amount of RFI system in Loess

Global climate change has significantly increased the frequency and intensity of high temperature and drought stresses. Additionally, the high temperature and drought are often concurred, which make the situation of maize production tougher. However, the influence of the combined stresses of high temperature and drought on summer maize production remains uncertain. The study aimed to investigate the

This review emphasizes the significance of combining regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) with woody crops, as they have higher water productivity (WP) and are tolerant to mild water deficits. After conducting the analysis, it was found that for most woody crops, reducing irrigation water by 20.0–30.0% has a negligible impact on yield, typically within a variation range of 10.0%, and it leads to an increase

In arid oasis regions, water resources are severely scarce, with agricultural water usage far exceeding that of more humid areas. As a result, assessing non-productive water losses in farmland becomes crucial for estimating the water requirements reliant on irrigation for oasis cultivation. From April 2018 to October 2021, we established an observation system in the Minqin Oasis farmland. By utilizing

Comprehending crop responses to water deficit at different growth stages is crucial for developing effective irrigation strategies. Different water deficit treatments (WDTs) were applied to the kiwifruit vines to investigate the effect of water deficit during different growth stages on the fruit quality, yield, and water productivity (WP); subsequently, the technique for order preference by similarity

Water, energy, and food are linked in intricate ways in irrigated agriculture and understanding the interplay of these components is crucial for sustainable and profitable crop production, particularly in smallholder setting such as in sub-Saharan Africa. This study evaluates water-energy-food linkages, engineering and economic performance, irrigation decision making, and challenges faced around water

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is an important vegetable crop around the world, and water scarcity and soil salinization are two major unfavorable factors limiting the fruit yield and quality of greenhouse tomato in arid and semi-arid regions. The application of exogenous silicon has been reported to enhance tomato yield under salt or drought stress, but its effect under combined salt-drought stress

The efficient use of water and nutrients in leafy vegetable crops can be improved by effective water management, whereas the form of the supplied nitrogen may affect their quality and productivity. Sowthistle (Sonchus oleraceus L.), a widespread weed collected and consumed as a wild vegetable in the past, currently attracts a high interest for commercial cultivation due to its high nutritional value

Socialized agricultural services (SASs) have reshaped the smallholder agricultural system and promoted scale operations in rural China, but little is known about whether and how they affect rural collective action in the irrigation commons. Based on the social-ecological system framework, we apply an ordered probit model and a mediation model to examine the effects of SASs on rural collective action

Improving the use of water in irrigated agriculture is meaningful in a period of increasing water scarcity conditions. A more accurate estimate of evapotranspiration (ET) and its components thus becomes fundamental to better quantify the irrigation water volumes. Many existing models, based on different remote sensing data, provide daily estimates of latent heat flux (LE) from correlation between net

Canals compose the arterial structure of irrigated agriculture, transporting free-surface flows to the vast majority of the world’s most productive farmland. Here we present a critical review and perspective of studies that describe the widespread and serious issue of seepage losses that occur as flows move through this critical network of watercourses. Such losses impact the hydrologic setting and

The thickness or depth of fine-textured soil (zf) dominates water storage capacity and exerts a control on nutrient leaching in semi-arid agroecosystems. At small pixel sizes (< 1 m; ‘fine resolution’), the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of cereal crops during senescence (Zadoks Growth Stages [ZGS] 90–93) offers a promising alternative to destructive sampling of zf using soil pits. However

In peri-urban agricultural lands of Lahore city, untreated wastewater from trans-boundary Hudiara drain is widely used for agriculture. The irrigated water may pose a hazard of trace element (TE) contamination in agricultural produce and consequently threat to human health. This study was designed to investigate the quality and transferability of TE contamination in water, soil, fodder and buffalo

Erosion is severe in major agricultural sectors and areas of concentrated intense rainfall, such as southern Brazil, Argentina, India, eastern China, the Midwestern United States, Ethiopia, and Mediterranean Europe. To meet the world's food needs while protecting the environment, a more environmentally friendly agricultural model is needed. How much the adoption of introduced SWCP can contribute to

Soil, water, and nutrients depletion may affect sustainable agriculture in some resource-poor areas. Implementing cover crops as a conservation management strategy mitigates the loss of water, soil, nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) by introducing vegetation during non-crop seasons or in the spaces between rows instead of leaving the land bare. This study aimed to compare water, soil, various carbon

The angle at which a droplet impacts determines its shearing and compaction effects on soil, which in turn affects the formation and properties of the physical soil crust. To investigate the effect of the droplet impact angle on soil physical crusting, this study considered droplet quantity, quality, and velocity and proposes an energy-weighted method for calculation of the equivalent droplet impact

Wind Drift and Evaporation Losses (WDEL) critically determine the application efficiency of sprinkler irrigation systems. In specific conditions, even half of the irrigation water can evaporate or drift out of the irrigated area. The purpose of this study was to develop a WDEL estimation equation based on dimensional analysis (Buckingham's π method), considering a wide set of independent variables

Carbon sequestration in soil has been extensively sought in the agroecosystems through practices which increase organic carbon inputs and/or decrease soil organic carbon (SOC) degradation processes. Less is known about the extent of shallow water table influences in mineral soils, despite being soil moisture a major driver in modifying the C cycle. To examine its effects, a 4-yr lysimetric experiment

The great challenges of food security, climate change and environmental degradation resulting from unreasonable nitrogen fertilizer (NF) inputs necessitate the optimization of fertilizer application to ensure fruit production and environmental sustainability. However, there is a lack of systematic analysis on the effects of NF inputs on apple yield and reactive nitrogen losses (N2O emission, NH3 volatilization

Climate warming has increased the frequency of droughts and excessive precipitation, adversely affecting crop growth, particularly under traditional intensive tillage. No-till improves crop tolerance to extreme events by reducing soil evaporation and improving soil structural stability to enhance soil water storage capacity and crop resistance, but long-term mono-no-till cakes the soil, reducing crop

Effective water and fertilizer management modes (WFMMs) are crucial for mitigating non-point source pollution, enhancing grain quality, and improving resource utilization in paddy fields. Nevertheless, screening WFMMs that can effectively synergize these benefits is challenging, particularly in the wake of climate change. A two-year lysimeter experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of WFMMs

The cosmic-ray neutron sensing (CRNS) is an emerging method for continuously monitoring soil water content (SWC) at an intermediate scale. However, when multiple hydrologic units are present within its footprint, the potential application of CRNS in water resources management is restricted. Here we propose a new strategy to predict point-scale SWC in root zone established on CRNS-based soil moisture

We sought to assess the impact on groundwater of using three types of saline waters to irrigate the halophyte Salicornia bigelovii Torrey in the hyper-arid United Arab Emirates. These were groundwater (GW) at 25 dS m−1, reverse-osmosis brine (RO) from a desalination unit at 40 dS m−1, and the aquabrine (AQ) effluent from land-based aquaculture in tanks filled with RO brine, also at 40 dS m−1. The three

Accurately assessing isotope information on water sources and mixtures is essential for determining root water uptake (RWU) patterns. This study investigates the impact of rooting depth and cryogenic vacuum extraction (CVE) on the isotopic composition of deep soil water and RWU patterns in a 19-year-old apple orchard on China’s Loess Plateau. We used a Bayesian mixing model (MixSIAR) to analyze corrected

Quantitatively evaluating the effects of multiple factors on the performance levels of different irrigation methods under a limited water supply in the water-food-economy nexus at the regional scale is of great significance; such evaluations can facilitate the selection of appropriate irrigation methods and schemes to reduce the contradiction between the water shortage and grain production circumstances

So far, many studies have examined the effects of surface (FF) and drip (DF) fertigation compared to surface (FC) and drip (DC) irrigation along with fertilization at different levels of fertilizer on crop yield indices, nutrient use efficiency (NUE), and irrigation water productivity (WP); however, each of them have been conducted under different conditions. Because of the scattered results and the

Drip irrigation is deemed as a solution to the water conflict between agricultural and ecological needs in arid regions, but assessing hydrological impacts of drip irrigation remains challenging. This study developed a new approach to simulating drip irrigation at a basin scale, with the configuration of irrigation system explicitly represented and the emitter-scale wetted soil volume directly modeled

Actual evapotranspiration (ET) is a key variable controlling the exchange of energy and water in terrestrial ecosystems. The spatial heterogeneity of ET patterns poses a great challenge for regional ET estimation over heterogeneous landscapes. In this study, we proposed a framework for estimating ET through interactive detector for spatial associations (IDSA)-based machine learning (ML) approaches

Non-point source pollution is a serious environmental issue and has attracted a lot of scientific attention. Currently, the influences of grazing on the water and nutrient cycles in alpine meadows, as well as corresponding underlying mechanisms, still remain unclear. The quantitative contributions of influence variables to the nutrient loading variations in rivers and streams in alpine-meadow watersheds

Deficit irrigation has emerged as a viable approach to increase agricultural water productivity. The objectives of this study were to 1) develop water conservation strategies by investigating responses of green bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) and sweet corn (Zea mays var. saccharata) to four irrigation treatments and 2) evaluate the performance of the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT)

The reference evapotranspiration (ETo) pertains to the evapotranspiration of cold-season grasses with an approximate height of 0.12 m or full-covered alfalfa with a height of 0.50 m. Accurate short-term ETo forecasts are indispensable for informed irrigation decisions by relevant departments and individuals. Four deep learning (DL) models, including Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Gated Recurrent Unit

Under long-term agricultural water saving strategy implemented in the Yellow River basin (YRB), this study analyzed long-term regional groundwater responses and their ecological impacts in an arid irrigation district (Hetao) in the upper YRB. The Mann-Kendall trend test was adopted to examine the trends of the monitoring data of climatic-anthropogenic factors and groundwater depth-salinity, as well

Pakistan’s existential reliance on the Indus River Basin for water security is threatened by population growth, climate change, and increasing intersectoral demands. Pakistan’s National Water Policy of 2018 (NWP) adopts ‘More Crop per Drop’ as a key policy platform. Within the ‘More Crop per Drop’ strategy the NWP mandates banning flood irrigation nationally and introducing high efficiency irrigation

The experiment employed a commonly used micro-sprinkling hose (N50) to investigate the variation in water distribution uniformity during different growth stages of spring wheat, considering four operating pressures (28, 35, 43, and 52 kPa) and two laying lengths (20 m and 40 m). By analyzing the water distribution uniformity of micro-sprinkling hose irrigation at varying plant heights of spring wheat

The North China Plain (NCP) has progressively implemented drip irrigation for winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) production because of its substantial irrigation water saving and improved water and nitrogen (N) use efficiency. Nevertheless, the ideal water-N utilization regime for drip-irrigated winter wheat remains ambiguous. Two years of field experiments were carried out to assess the influences

The instability of photovoltaic output leads to pressure fluctuations, and the high investment, low water head of traditional energy storage and pressure regulation measures have seriously limited the application of solar powered sprinkler irrigation. This study provides an innovative idea for storing, regulating and utilizing solar energy through compressed air energy storage to meet the energy demand

Reactive nitrogen gas (Nr) originating from the soil is highly susceptible to the influence of agricultural water and fertilizer management practices, making it a critical gas that can substantially contribute to atmospheric pollution. Understanding the emission patterns of Nr in the surface soil under reclaimed water (RW) irrigation is essential for guiding RW irrigation practices and informing policies

The main limitation of conventional methods generally used for monitoring the crop water stress lies in the expenditure of time and laboriousness (e.g., stem water potential, Ψstem). In this sense, infrared thermography can assist to identify the crop water status for precise irrigation purposes. However, this method requires high cost equipment and heavy systems for real-time analysis of the results

Large fertilizer nitrogen (N) input has created favorable conditions for nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in semi-arid areas. However, it remains to be determined whether the major contradictions between high yield and N2O emissions reduction can be reconciled by matching fertilization with water availability. A 3-year field experiment was conducted in the Loess Plateau of northwest China, monitored N2O

Combining organic and inorganic fertilizers is critical for increasing yield and improving soil fertility. However, the specific effects of this combination on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in hilly apple orchards remain unclear. Furthermore, studies on slope agriculture often overlook slope runoff, a significant factor to consider. Hence, we conducted a two-year field trial in a hilly apple orchard

After completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1970, the Egyptian government undertook an ambitious programme to install drainage on all of Egypt’s agricultural lands (approx. 2.7 Mha). In the decades that followed, subsurface drainage was implemented on 2.5 Mha, and drainage practices evolved from manual to large-scale and mechanized. Currently, new or rehabilitated systems are being installed on some

The uncontrolled establishment of weeds in upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.), especially perennial silverleaf nightshade (Solanum elaeagnifolium), reduces lint yield and quality of cotton primarily by competing with cotton to limit essential resources such as water. Quantitative insight into the effects of cotton-silverleaf nightshade interactions on the root water uptake (RWU) in cotton is needed

Identifying operational losses in irrigation canals can be difficult due to inaccurate simplification in designing and operating national guidelines. However, this study aims to provide a practical solution to this problem by identifying operational losses, which are the primary cause of off-farm irrigation water losses. The method involves simulating the daily delivered water to individual Irrigation

Nitrate-N losses from artificially drained agricultural fields lead to an acceleration of eutrophication and hypoxia in aquatic ecosystems. Adoption of conservation practices, such as cover crops and woodchip bioreactors, can significantly reduce nitrate losses and improve water quality. However, the long-term performance of these conservation practices and their effect on water quality has not been

Onion bacterial diseases pose a serious economic risk to growers as they can lead to catastrophic crop losses. Moisture in the plant canopy plays a critical role in onion bacterial disease development by dispersing the pathogens onto plants (e.g., in splashing water) and keeping conditions conducive for bacterial growth. For this reason, irrigation management can be a promising avenue for controlling

Soil heavy metal pollution seriously endangers the soil ecological environment and food safety production. In this study, drip irrigation tests with four irrigation frequencies were conducted by controlling the lower limit of the soil matric potential (D1: −10 kPa; D2: −20 kPa; D3: −30 kPa; D4: −40 kPa). Through comparison with traditional surface irrigation, the effect of drip irrigation on the root

Available energy partitioning in the canopy and at the soil surface under the control of biophysical environment critically influences agricultural water resources management and the regional climate. Drip irrigation technology has been extensively promoted in arid regions and is gradually replacing conventional border irrigation technology, which alters the soil surface hydrothermal conditions and

Film mulching is widely used as an agronomic practice to counteract water scarcity in arid and semi-arid areas. Although crop models have emerged as powerful tools for system studies and scenarios analysis, they have been rarely used in areas with severe drought and salinization and where mulching is being used as a management practice. An earlier study shown great modelling potential under severe