The cultivation of rice, one of the most important staple crops worldwide, has very high water requirements. A variety of irrigation practices are applied, whose pros and cons, both in terms of water productivity and of their effects on the environment, are not completely understood yet. The continuous monitoring of irrigation and rainfall inputs, as well as of soil water dynamics, is a very important factor in the analysis of these practices. At the same time, however, it represents a challenging and costly task because of the complexity of the processes involved, of the difference in nature and magnitude of the driving variables and of the high variety of field conditions. In this paper, we present the prototype of an integrated, multisensor system for the continuous monitoring of water dynamics in rice fields under different irrigation regimes. The system consists of the following: (1) flow measurement devices for the monitoring of irrigation supply and tailwater drainage; (2) piezometers for groundwater level monitoring; (3) level gauges for monitoring the flooding depth; (4) multilevel tensiometers and moisture sensor clusters to monitor soil water status; (5) eddy covariance station for the estimation of evapotranspiration fluxes and (6) wireless transmission devices and software interface for data transfer, storage and control from remote computer. The system is modular and it is replicable in different field conditions. It was successfully applied over a 2-year period in three experimental plots in Northern Italy, each one with a different water management strategy. In the paper, we present information concerning the different instruments selected, their interconnections and their integration in a common remote control scheme. We also provide considerations and figures on the material and labour costs of the installation and management of the system.
About 90 % of the global rice production takes place in Asia, while European production is quantitatively modest. Italy is the Europe's leading producer, with over half of total production concentrated in a large, traditional paddy rice area in the north of the country. High irrigation requirement for continuous flooding encourages the adoption of water saving techniques. In 2013, an intense monitoring activity was conducted on two fields characterized by continuous flooding and intermittent irrigation regimes, with the aim of comparing their agronomical and hydrological effects, including their influence on the energy balance. An eddy covariance station was installed on the levee between the two fields, to monitor latent (LE) and sensible (H) heat fluxes as a function of wind direction. Additionally, the fields were instrumented with net radiometers, soil heat flux (G) plates, thermistors, tensiometers, and multilevel moisture probes. Three footprint models were applied to determine position and size of the footprint area at each monitoring time step, providing similar results. Two half-hourly turbulent fluxes datasets were obtained, one for each irrigation regime, each one comprising about 10 % of the daytime time steps over the agricultural season. The reliability of the monitoring performed with a single EC station was confirmed by the energy balance closure (H ? LE versus R n -G), showing an imbalance lower than 10 % for both the regimes. A detailed analysis of the effect of the storage terms on the ground heat flux estimation and a more thorough analysis of the radiation balance for the two plots were also performed.
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