Irrigation optimization under a limited water supply by the integration of modern approaches into traditional water management on the cotton fields

By: Polinova M., Salinas K., Bonfante A., Brook A.
Published in: Remote Sensing
SDGs : SDG 13  |  Units: Social Sciences  | Time: 2019 |  Link
Description: The ability to effectively develop agriculture with limited water resources is an important strategic objective to face future climate change and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2) of the United Nations. Since new conditions increasingly point to a limited water supply, the aim of modern irrigation management is to be sure to maximize the crop yield and minimize water use. This study aims to explore the advantages of the traditional agronomic approach, agro-hydrological model and field feedback obtained by spectroscopy, to optimize irrigation water management in the example of a cotton field. The study was conducted for two summer growing seasons in 2015 and 2016 in Kibbutz Hazorea, near Haifa, Israel. The irrigation schedule was developed by farmers using weather forecasts and corrected by the results of field inspections. The Soil Water Atmosphere Plant (SWAP) model was applied to optimize seasonal water distribution based on different criteria (critical soil pressure head and allowable daily stress). A new optimization algorithm for irrigation schedules by weather forecasts and vegetation indices was developed and presented in this paper. A few indices related to physical parameters and plant health (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Red Edge Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Modified Chlorophyll Absorption Ratio Index 2, and Photochemical Reflectance Index) were considered. Red Edge Normalized Difference Vegetation Index proves itself as a suitable parameter for monitoring crop state due to its clear-cut response to irrigation treatments and was introduced in the developed algorithm. The performance of the considered irrigation scheduling approaches was assessed by a simulation model application for cotton fields in 2016. The results show, that the irrigation schedule developed by farmers did not compensate for the absence of precipitation in spring, which led to long-term lack of water during crop development. The optimization developed by SWAP allows determining the minimal amount of water which ensures appropriate yield. However, this approach could not take into account the non-linear effect of the lack of water at specific phenological stages on the yield. The new algorithm uses the minimal sufficient seasonal amount of water obtained from SWAP optimization. The approach designed allows one to prevent critical stress in cotton and distribute water in conformity with agronomic practice. © 2019 by the authors.