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Authors:
Najib Boubakri
Alberto Garcia-Prats
Juan Manuel Carricondo-Antón
Miguel Angel Jimenez-Bello
Manuel Pulido-Velazquez
Keywords: water scarcity; irrigation management; water use efficiency; perennial crops.
Abstract:
Efficient water use in irrigated agriculture is essential, particularly in water-scarce regions. Accurately measuring and managing crop water requirements is key to enhancing water use efficiency. This research presents a new approach implemented in the AquaCitrus model, which separately calculates crop transpiration using the basal crop coefficient and soil evaporation through the Ritchie model. The proposed methodology was applied to calculate the water requirements of drip-irrigated mature citrus trees (Citrus sinensis) during the 2015 irrigation season in the semi-arid climate of eastern Spain (Valencia), one of the country´s major citrus producing regions. Key parameters, including crop coefficients, transpiration rates, evaporation rates were compared with values from alternative approaches and previous studies, showing high concordance and underscoring the robustness of the developed approach. A significant finding was the clear differentiation between beneficial water use (transpiration, 83.7%) and non-beneficial water loss (evaporation, 16.3%), which is crucial for optimizing irrigation water management in arid and semi-arid areas. The results demonstrate that this methodology is both valuable and practical for improving water use efficiency due to its simplicity and minimal data requirements, making it feasible for calculating local values effectively.
Pages: 39 to 42
Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2024
Publication date: November 17, 2024
Published in: conference
ISBN: 978-1-68558-323-1
Location: Valencia, Spain
Dates: from November 17, 2024 to November 21, 2024