This paper presents a simple approach for estimating the spatial and temporal variability of seasonal net irrigation water requirement (IWR) at the catchment scale, based on gridded land use, soil and daily weather data at 500 × 500 m resolution. In this approach, IWR is expressed as a bounded, linear function of the atmospheric water budget, whereby the latter is defined as the difference betw...

Agricultural monitoring is necessary for efficient food security management at country level. Typically, monitoring requirement from the point of view of an agricultural/irrigation manager would be to “see” each field at a regular interval to which 15 days is reasonable. Evapotranspiration (ETa) is converting the water into crop, and is therefore a crucial indicator of crop productivity. ETa ca...

Agriculture accounts for most of the renewable freshwater resource withdrawals in Malawi, yet food insecurity and water scarcity remain as major challenges. Despite Malawi’s vast water resources, climate change, coupled with increasing population and urbanisation are contributing to increasing water scarcity. Improving crop water productivity has been identified as a possible solution to water ...

Background: To mitigate climate impacts associated with energy consumption, renewable fuel policies have been established in the USA that encourage production and use of corn ethanol. Current fuel usage of corn ethanol is approximately 15 billion gallons/year (57 billion liters/year), with nearly all of this in the form of E10 (10% blend in gasoline). There is now interest in increasing fuel et...

virtual water adds a new dimension to crop trades and provides a new way of thinking about water scarcity. a systematic analysis of virtual water flows requires integration of all critical drivers of virtual water flows under a single consistent framework. the aim of this study was to assess virtual water flows related to trades of grain crops (wheat, corn, rice, and coarse cereals) and their i...

Measuring sensitivity of hydraulic structures is considered as an approach for evaluation of water projects performance, due to lower distribution efficiency in Irrigation and Drainage project schemes. Sensitivity analysis approach for irrigation structures is one of flow analysis methods which are developed in recent years in order to measure the behavior of flow in hydraulic structures in an ...

Conceptual models accounting for the influence of source:sink ratio on water relations of trees are theoretically relevant from a physiological perspective and practically important for irrigation scheduling. Midday stem water potential of horticultural trees often declines with increasing crop load but the actual response depends on environmental, management and plant factors. Here we advance ...

Sweet sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] is a multipurpose crop (food, feed, fodder and fuel) that has the potential as an alternative biofuel feedstock without impacting food and fodder security. This chapter entitled ‘‘Sweet sorghum: From theory to practice’’ discusses on the historical developments in sweet sorghum and immense range of genetic variability that was available in major sorgh...

this study was performed to investigate the effect of different levels of irrigation water applied in tape drip irrigation on yield, seed yield components, oil yield, seed oil percent, and seed water use efficiency (wue) of two canola varieties in behbahan agriculture research station in 2009 and 2010 seasons. the experiment was performed in split plots as a randomized complete block design wit...