Allometry is extensively used to describe the scaling relationship between individual size and metabolite allocation. Micro-field rain-harvesting system can improve soil water availability and thus alter the allocation of individual biomass among organs. Yet the eco-physiological mechanism based on allometric scaling theory has been little investigated under various mulching conditions. A field experiment

In this study, a fuzzy multi-objective mλ-measure dependent-chance programming model was proposed to optimize limited irrigation water among three crops and five subareas in Hetao Irrigation District (HID) under uncertainties, with the objectives of ensuring food security and maximizing economic benefits. Three levels of droughts (100%, 85%, and 70% of annual average water diversion) that may happen

In arid and semi-arid regions, plant responses to water deficits at different phenological stages should be investigated for efficient use of water resources and sustainable irrigation management. This study was conducted under the regional conditions in the Konya province with a semi-arid climate for two years (2016–17) to determine the effects of irrigation applied at different growth stages on yield

Increasing agricultural water use efficiency (WUE) and water productivity (WP) is imperative to alleviate water scarcity and achieve sustainable agriculture in inland river basins. The confusion on the use of the two indicators at demarcated scales in this issue has been addressed. Analysis of the literature, however, lacks evaluation of the most proper management scale. The Heihe River Basin (HRB) in

Film mulched drip irrigation (FMDI) has clear benefits for saving water and promoting cotton production in Xinjiang, China. Due to the complicated transport processes for soil water and salt under FMDI, it is still challenging to systematically answer the questions such as the soil water and salt balance in the root zone, cotton yield and water productivity (WP) under typical planting modes and irrigation

Plastic film mulching has been widely applied in farmland around the world, which could complicate the mass and energy exchange between soil surface and atmosphere. Although previous studies suggested that film mulching reduced available energy (Rn − G) and crop evapotranspiration (ET) in some crop growth stages, it was unclear how film mulching would influence energy partition, crop ET and crop coefficient

Reducing water use and mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are two major challenges faced by paddy rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivation. Water-saving technologies, including controlled irrigation (CI), plastic film mulching (FM), and straw mulching (SM), have been increasingly adopted to improve rice production efficiency. However, few studies have comprehensively evaluated the effects of these

Selection of a suitable low-pressure sprinkler can be an effective measure to reduce energy consumption, wind drift and evaporation losses. The crop canopy often redistributes the applied water during sprinkler irrigation. Therefore, we investigated the water distributions above and below the canopy as well as their differences in Heermann and Hein uniformity coefficient (CUH) under three commonly

Soil water content in maize root zone is the main basis of irrigation decision-making. Therefore, it is important to predict the soil water content at different depths in maize root zone for rational agricultural irrigation. This study proposed a hybrid convolutional neural network-gated recurrent unit (CNN-GRU) integrated deep learning model that combines a CNN with strong feature expression capacity

As a fiber crop and oil crop, cotton plays an important role in the economic development of northwest China, but the lack of appropriate field water and fertilizer management strategies has restricted the harmonious development of cotton industry and environment. Field experiments were implemented to explore the coupling effects of various drip irrigation and fertilizer levels on the dry matter, yield

An interval nonlinear double-sided fuzzy chance-constrained programming (INDFCCP) approach is formulated to effectively allocate irrigation water among competing water users. The INDFCCP approach is formulated by combining inexact quadratic programming (IQP) and double-sided fuzzy chance-constrained programming (DFCCP) within a general optimization framework. This approach has the following features

Rational application of water and fertilizer management practices can not only improve mango (Mangifera indica L.) yield and quality but also improve irrigation water-use efficiency (IWUE). However, few studies have addressed the use of water and fertilizer management practices in hot, dry environments with the aim of achieving relatively favorable levels of these parameters concurrently. We used the

Unreasonable layout of drip irrigation systems and inappropriate irrigation decision-making methods in orchards in water-scarce areas in Northern China result in low water use efficiency (WUE). In order to reveal the effect of drip irrigation mode on WUE of orchards and improve efficient use of water resources, this study used pear (Pyrus pyrifolia cv. Whangkeumbae) as a test material to conduct a

The Indus Basin Irrigation System (IBIS) of Pakistan is a major user of surface and groundwater and provides food and economic security for about 207 million people. To assess the impact of agricultural development on water resources, we developed surface water balances for its canal commands and examined trends from 1981‐82 to 2012‐13. In this semi-arid environment, crop water use is the major water

The ridge-furrow rainfall harvesting system (RFRHS) is an in-situ rainfall collection and utilization technique that has been widely adopted in global arid and semiarid farming areas because of its significant benefits to soil water availability and crop yield. However, the integrated effects of different ridge-furrow configurations on rainwater collection and crop performance are still lacking. Using

Brewery effluent (BE) can be used as a water and nutrient source for crop irrigation. It contains high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, which are essential plant nutrients. However, the effluent at Ibhayi Brewery (SAB Ltd) has a high concentration of sodium, which is a constraint for its reuse in agriculture. The objectives here were to determine the salt removal efficiency, crop growth and health

A reasonable estimation of crop water uptake depth (WUD) provides vital prerequisites for determining scientific irrigation scheduling. However, real-time acquisition of crop WUD to guide irrigation has not been reported. In the current study, a smart irrigation system based on real-time soil moisture data was developed, in which the dynamic crop WUD was estimated using the spatiotemporal characteristics

The reuse of treated wastewater for olive irrigation is becoming a common practice in areas with limited water resources. However, this water may contain high level of salts (Na+ and Cl−) that could affect plant performances when used for a long period. In order to enhance the tolerance of plants to salt stress induced by treated wastewater, the application of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) may

Understanding the soil-water dynamics and maize evapotranspiration (ETc) under variable rate irrigation (VRI) and variable rate fertigation (VRF) management with respect to soil spatial variability constitutes the basis for developing effective variable rate water and nitrogen management strategies. This long-term research was designed to quantify and compare the soil-water dynamics, including available

Remote sensing technology can cost-effectively access to a wide range of real-time land surface spatial information, therefore it is widely used in agricultural crops monitoring. And timely assessment of drought stress using remote sensing is valuable for improving the crop management level. In this study, the drought stress was evaluated in the maize planting areas of the Northeast and North China

Meteorological data are often collected in dry, desert regions where the local environments exhibit effects of aridity caused by the lack of evapotranspiration (ET). In contrast, the standard reference ET (ETo) calculations of FAO56 and ASCE assume that the surfaces underlying collected weather data are well-watered so that near-surface meteorological measurements reflect the cooling and humidifying

Identifying the dominance of climate and land use in soil water balance (SWB) is critical for developing water resource management strategies in agriculture and in environment. The large soil water reservoir in the thick vadose zone of China’s Loess Plateau has been depleting in recent years; however, the connection of climate and land use changes with SWB has rarely been differentiated. An experimental

Water pricing and reducing the costs of the implementation and maintenance of irrigation systems have been a challenging topic for a long time. Water pricing issues combine two complex dimensions. The first dimension is the economy of the farm and its association with the broader economic system and farming practices. The second dimension is the hydrology and interconnection of the plot with the irrigation

In order to generate information about the potential of ‘Biquinho’ pepper as an alternative crop for regions with limited supply of freshwater but with availability of brackish water, such as the semiarid region, a study was carried out with this crop grown in NFT (Nutrient Film Technique) hydroponic system for 120 days after transplanting (DAT). The experiment used nutrient solution prepared in water

The long-term utilization of brackish water for irrigation in arid areas will decrease the oxygen content required for root growth, leading to the deterioration of soil environment in the root zone and the inhibition of plant growth. This study investigated the effects of oxygenated brackish water on the physiological characteristics of seed germination and seedling growth characteristics of spring

Accurate and fast estimation of reference evapotranspiration (ET0) is important in determining crop water requirements, designing irrigation schedule, planning and managing agricultural water resources, especially when limited meteorological data are available. This study proposed a novel kernel extreme learning machine model coupled with the K-means clustering and firefly algorithms (Kmeans-FFA-KELM)

The generalized effective global optimization (EGO) method based on Kriging model can sequentially solve the expensive black-box problems. However, it can only obtain one sampling point in a cycle, which will result in more time spent on expensive function evaluations and affect the global convergence. To this end, A Kriging-based adaptive global optimization method with generalized expected improvement

Poor grain filling of inferior kernel of summer maize is a major challenge restricting grain yield of summer maize, especially under higher plant densities. Much work so far has proved that tillage practices could regulate soil properties and grain yield of maize effectively. In order to explore the effect of tillage practice on grain filling of inferior kernel of summer maize, field experiments were

Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) has been cultivated in arid or semi-arid area due to its high drought tolerance. Yet information on how elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration ([CO2]) affects the responses to drought of the productivity, photosynthesis, water-use efficiency and drought tolerance of broomcorn millet is lacking. We investigated the effects of elevated [CO2] and drought on gas

The future economic and agricultural sustainability of semiarid western Nebraska will largely depend on more efficient utilization of the declining groundwater resources. The scope of this research was to evaluate the maize hybrid yield, water productivity (WP; i.e. grain yield produced per unit of water consumed), and irrigation water productivity (IWP; i.e. increase in grain yield per unit of irrigation

Reference evapotranspiration (ET0) is one of the most important parameters, which is required in many fields such as hydrological, agricultural, and climatological studies. Therefore, its estimation via reliable and accurate techniques is a necessity. The present study aims to estimate the monthly ET0 time series of six stations located in Iran. To achieve this objective, gene expression programming

Water shortage is the most critical constraint for alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) hay production in the arid areas of Northwest China. In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of partial root-zone drying (PRD) with subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) for alfalfa and compared it with conventional subsurface drip irrigation (CI). Field plot tests were conducted in 2017 and 2018 with three irrigation

An algorithm was proposed to classify wheat fields into high-productive and low-productive classes using satellite images according to a threshold value for rain-fed wheat ETa in the anthesis stage. Since the classification process was based on the ETa values in the rain-fed wheat pixels, an algorithm was proposed to map wheat fields using the combination of MODIS and Landsat-8 images. The wheat area

Northeast China (NEC) has recently become one of the largest commercial rice production regions in China. However, the increased production combined with increasingly frequent climate oscillations is severe competing for fresh water with the non-agricultural sectors in this region and is threatening national food security. In this study, the ORYZA (v3) crop model was used to estimate the rice yields

Orchard evapotranspiration (ET) is a complex flux which has been the subject of many studies. It often includes transpiration from the trees, cover crops and weeds, evaporation from the soil, mulches and other orchard artefacts. In this study we investigated the contribution of the orchard floor evaporative fluxes to whole orchard ET focusing on the transpiration dynamics of understorey vegetation

The annual double cropping of winter wheat and summer maize plays an important role in ensuring the food supply in the North China Plain (NCP). With the intensifying water shortage, a deficit irrigation strategy has been gradually applied to this cropping system. The limited irrigation water supply generally results in a dry root zone soil profile at winter wheat harvesting which further negatively

Irrigation water scarcity has now become one of the main constraints that influences global crop production. The potential reduction in Egypt’s Nile share and the current degree of deterioration of surface and ground water will certainly increase the severity of the water shortage problem in Egypt. Raised bed planting systems under deficit irrigation could be a partial solution to compensate for the

Irrigated agriculture in Pakistan provides food and livelihood security for about 220 million people, mostly living in Punjab and Sindh provinces. This review paper explains the institutional arrangements for water supply and on-farm water management along with their roles. Successful elements covering decades of efforts have also been studied. The implications of less profitability of the farming

Degradation of soils due to sodification is now widespread in arid and semiarid areas irrigated with groundwater having residual alkalinity. We monitored the changes in soil physical, chemical, and hydraulic characteristics of a sandy loam soil irrigated for the last two decades with two types of alkali waters (AW1, AW2) having similar salts (total electrolyte concentration, TEC = 30 me L−1) and sodium

Over the past decades, China’s rice production area has experienced a substantial change in spatial distribution that has exacerbated national freshwater scarcity. To support the development of guidelines for sustainable water use in rice cropping, this study explores the potential for achieving a downscaled freshwater use boundary with high spatial resolution while maintaining China’s current production

Irrigation with brackish water is a possible solution to alleviate freshwater shortages in arid and semi-arid regions. However, necessary measures need to be taken to leach accumulated salts out of the root zone. This can be accomplished by leaching with freshwater applied by surface irrigation (LFSI), which needs to be optimized to improve the leaching efficiency. An experiment in a field drip-irrigated

This study proposed a calculation framework to reasonably and effectively calculate the agricultural irrigation water consumption (AIWC) and reused irrigation return flow (IRFr) in multi-source irrigation systems based on the modified Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The calculation framework was applied in the Yangshudang (YSD) watershed in southern China over the years. Results showed that

Canada is one of the top wheat grain exporters, with a share of more than 10% in the world wheat market. The majority of Canadian wheat production takes place in the Prairies where 6.2 million ha of the area is seeded to spring wheat. The climate is semiarid with an estimated precipitation deficit of about 300 mm during the crop growing season, indicating that water is the primary limiting factor for

In the poorly drained regions of the world, subsurface drainage systems are required to remove excess water for crop growth. Plastic drains alter a field’s hydrology by lowering the water table, reducing surface ponding, and reducing surface runoff. One significant concern with the use of subsurface drainage systems is adverse environmental effects because of the modification of the soil water dynamics

Field scale experiments are seldom replicated due to size constraints and limitations of other resources. This presents a difficulty in performing statistical analysis and interpretation of the results collected. In this paper we will evaluate water and nutrient effluent data from two fields, one managed under controlled subsurface drainage (CSSD) compared with an adjacent field under conventional

The objective of this study was to determine whether grain yield and nitrogen (N) use efficiency (NUE) in winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) could be improved by alternate furrow irrigation (AFI). During the 2009–2010 and 2010–2011 crop seasons, the effects of AFI on grain yield, NUE (and its components), the recovery of 15N-labeled fertilizer, N uptake and distribution, and soil nitrate-N were evaluated

Accurate determination of temporal variability in infiltration parameters and Manning’s roughness coefficient is essential for appropriate design of surface irrigation systems to improve irrigation performance and reduce water losses. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of temporal variability and different inflow rates on infiltration parameters, Manning’s roughness, and irrigation

This study was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of a mobile phone-based thermal and UAV-based multispectral imaging to assess the irrigation performance of African eggplant. The study used a randomized block design (RBD) with sub-plots being irrigated at 100% (I100), 80% (I80) and 60% (I60) of the calculated crop water requirements using drip. The leaf moisture content was monitored at different

The estimation of Reference Evapotranspiration (ET0) is crucial to estimate crop water requirements, especially in developing countries and areas with scarce water resources. In these regions, the impossibility of collecting all the required data to compute FAO-56 Penman–Monteith equation (FAO56-PM) makes scientists search new methodologies to accurately estimate ET0 with the minimum number of climatic

Climate change requires Mediterranean farms to maintain adequate profitability, while adapting to the increase in water needs of crops, the growth of water demand for non-agricultural users and the reduction of resource availability. We use discrete stochastic programming models of three Italian farming areas to simulate the adaptation paths of their farm types to changes in yields and irrigation needs

Previous research established growth-stage-specific irrigation scheduling for upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) in Uzbekistan. We report further investigation of irrigation scheduling for two cotton varieties and its effect on seed-lint yield and irrigation crop water productivity with and without use of a wetting front detector (WFD) to trigger irrigation cessation. A WFD is a device buried in

Understanding the evolution characteristics of regional drought is crucial to the sustainable development of ecology and social economy, especially in typical water-limited area. However, the exploring the spatial-temporal dynamics of agricultural drought in the Loess Plateau (LP) under global warming and regional vegetation restoration project is still insufficient, and its potential causes remain

Drought stress reduces seed crop yields in part by causing reproductive sterility associated with increased endogenous ABA. Application of the film antitranspirant, di-1-p-menthene, during reproductive-stage drought has been shown to ameliorate yield loss in wheat but the physiological processes involved are not understood. Using rain shelters to simulate Mediterranean-type terminal drought, we studied

Spatial and temporal variability of soil properties, irrigation schedules, and fertilization management play an important role in crop growth and yield in agricultural systems. However, how to improve and accurately predict crop yield in different management zones (MZs) within a large-scale field are important but rarely discussed. In this study, coefficient of variation, linear correlations, partial

Knowledge of vegetation water depletion and the underlying mechanisms are essential for understanding eco-hydrological processes and fragile ecological environment protection. Based on a 2-year field experiments, this study investigated the transpiration and its influencing factors for three karstic climax forest communities located in the depression (DeC), mid-slope (MsC) and summit (SuC) of a typical