Optimizing Water Production Function and Deficit Irrigation Scheduling during Extreme Dry Periods
Publication: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 147, Issue 12
Abstract
Severe drought events and sparse rainfall due to climate change in recent years are resulting in costly demand for agricultural water resources, requiring sustainable management addressing water use efficiency and timing and quantity of irrigation applications. This study illustrates the advantage of using optimization considering interactions of water production function and limited available soil-water over the use of single-equation models of yield response function alone for promoting deficit irrigation. Procedures in this study maximize crop production and minimize available soil-water for deficit irrigation scheduling over a crop growth period of 3 months: June, July, and August. Deficit irrigation reduced crop water stress in July (driest month) compared to crop water stress in June and August. Applications of procedures to main-crop potato production data showed yield increases of one-half ton/hectare, and the minimized irrigation was 4 mm less on average than the quantity of soil-water actually used for the observed yield over a land area of about 6,700 ha in East Anglia, United Kingdom. A small proportionate increase of optimum soil-water increased the same proportion of main-crop potato yield.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
Most of the data were provided by the Anglian Water Authority, Meteorology Department and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), UK, which is gratefully acknowledged. Thanks are also due to East Anglia University Environment Science Department for providing the information on land use for agriculture and water supply in East Anglia region. The very constructive comments of the editor and reviewers are acknowledged.
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Published In
Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 147 • Issue 12 • December 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 29, 2021
Accepted: Aug 26, 2021
Published online: Oct 4, 2021
Published in print: Dec 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Mar 4, 2022
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