Tools for Crop Water Irrigation Assessment: Two Italian Examples

Agriculture is the largest user of water on the planet with a 70% of all freshwater withdrawals. Today the growing scarcity and competition for water among agricultural, industrial, commercial and residential sectors are pushing the water managers to allocate water more efficiently. In this scenario the use of methodologies and tools for better monitor and schedule the irrigation water for the agricultural sector are becoming relevant in the decision making process. In this paper two tools for calculating the crop irrigation requirements are proposed. The tools determinates, based on the complex relationships of the system soil-plant-atmosphere, the quantities and timing of water to be granted to meet the crops needs. The tools, developed by the Italian Institute for Agricultural Economics, are called Bilancio and MARSALa. Bilancio was realized for estimating the irrigation needs at parcel level for the Reclamation and Irrigation Consortia located in Southern Italy. MARSALa was developed for the estimation of the irrigation water consumption at farm level for the whole Italian farm universe by using, as a key source of information, the 2010 Italian