Concepts and Applications of AquaCrop: The FAO Crop Water Productivity Model

Steduto, Pasquale; Raes, Dirk; Hsiao, Theodore C.; Fereres, E.; Heng, Lee; Howell, T. A.; Evett, Steven R.; Rojas-Lara, B. A.; Farahani, Hamid J.; Izzi, Gabriella; Oweis, Theib; Wani, S P; Hoogeveen, J.; Geerts, Sam

doi:10.1007/978-3-642-01132-0_19

Cited by 48 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 27 publications

(24 reference statements)

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“…The tomato ET was analysed in previous studies by other crop models. For example, AquaCrop (Steduto et al, 2009) simulates correctly the seasonal evapotranspiration of tomato (Rinaldi et al, 2011;Palumbo et al, 2012;Katerij et al, 2013) under good conditions of water supply. While in the case of tomato grown with deficit irrigation, AquaCrop shows a poor skill to predict ET (Katerij et al, 2013).…”

Section: Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

Evapotranspiration of tomato simulated with the CRITERIA model

Campi¹,

Modugno²,

Mastrorilli³

et al. 2014

Ital J Agronomy

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The CRITERIA model simulates crop development and water dynamics in agricultural soils at different spatial scales. The objective of this paper was to test CRITERIA in order to evaluate the suitability of the model as a tool for scheduling irrigation at field scale. The first step of the work was to validate this hypothesis, by means of calibration and validation of CRITERIA on processing tomato in two experimental sites in Southern Italy (Rutigliano and Foggia) for the years 2007 and 2008 under different irrigation regimes. The irrigation treatments were: i) absence of plant water stress (the control treatments set up for both years and sites), ii) moderately stressed (applied in Rutigliano for 2007), and iii) severely stressed (applied in Foggia for 2008). The second step consisted in the evaluation of the expected impact of different irrigation regimes on daily actual evapotranspiration. For model calibration, the 2007 data of the control treatment was used, whereas in the validation process of actual evapotranspiration, the other part of the dataset was used. The observed data were crop evapotranspiration, agrometeorological data, leaf area index, physical-chemical and hydrological characteristics of soil, phenological stages and irrigation management. In order to evaluate model performance we used three statistical indicators to compare simulated and measured values of actual evapotranspiration: the normalised differences of seasonal values are less than 10% for all treatments; the model efficiency index on the typical period between two irrigations (4 days) was positive for all treatments, with the best values in the Foggia site, for both the irrigated and the severely stressed experiments; the relative root mean square error (RRMSE) was smaller than 20% in both the control treatments, but higher than 30% for the stressed treatments. The increase in RRMSE for the stressed experiments is due to CRITERIA simulating a crop in good soil water conditions and, as a consequence, with a larger evapotranspiration demand with respect to water stressed crop.Therefore, we can consider CRITERIA as a suitable tool to manage irrigations of processed tomato, especially for the full irrigation regime; an improvement can be reached by simulating the impact of water stress conditions on the eco-physiological parameters of the crop, in order to use the model also under deficit irrigation regimes. IntroductionItaly is one of the world's major producers of processing tomatoes (Lycopersicum esculentum Mill.), with a production of 600,000 t (in 2009), amounting to 23% of world production. In Puglia, the tomato crop is particularly common, with an incidence of 29% of Italian production (ISTAT, 2012).In southern Italy, the water consumption for this crop was estimated between 400 and 600 mm depending on climatic conditions (Rana et al., 2012). The production, in terms of fresh fruit yield, ranges from 80 to 160 t ha -1 (Rinaldi et al., 2011).Water management is a crucial point for the tomato crops, given the limited availab...

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Section: Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

Evapotranspiration of tomato simulated with the CRITERIA model

Campi¹,

Modugno²,

Mastrorilli³

et al. 2014

Ital J Agronomy

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“…An inter-model comparison for the case of no N stress and no water stress (taking optimal N application rate and full irrigation) for exactly the same growing conditions in Spain shows similar crop yields and net irrigation supply. The current study, using the APEX model, simulates a net irrigation supply of 638 mm and a maize yield of 11.1 t ha −1 , while in an earlier study, employing the AquaCrop model (Steduto et al, 2011), we simulate an irrigation supply of 630 mm and a maize yield of 11.9 t ha −1 (Chukalla et al, 2015). APEX is reported to adequately simulate evapotranspiration for different management practices with the Penman-Monteith equation for semi-arid conditions in the Mediterranean, including Spain (Cavero et al, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grey water footprint reduction in irrigated crop production: effect of nitrogen application rate, nitrogen form, tillage practice and irrigation strategy

Chukalla

Krol

Hoekstra

2018

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Grey water footprint (WF) reduction is essential given the increasing water pollution associated with food production and the limited assimilation capacity of fresh water. Fertilizer application can contribute significantly to the grey WF as a result of nutrient leaching to groundwater and runoff to streams. The objective of this study is to explore the effect of the nitrogen application rate (from 25 to 300 kg N ha −1 ), nitrogen form (inorganic N or manure N), tillage practice (conventional or no-tillage) and irrigation strategy (full or deficit irrigation) on the nitrogen load to groundwater and surface water, crop yield and the N-related grey water footprint of crop production by a systematic model-based assessment. As a case study, we consider irrigated maize grown in Spain on loam soil in a semi-arid environment, whereby we simulate the 20-year period 1993-2012. The water and nitrogen balances of the soil and plant growth at the field scale were simulated with the Agricultural Policy Environmental eXtender (APEX) model. As a reference management package, we assume the use of inorganic N (nitrate), conventional tillage and full irrigation. For this reference, the grey WF at a usual N application rate of 300 kg N ha −1 (with crop yield of 11.1 t ha −1 ) is 1100 m 3 t −1 , which can be reduced by 91 % towards 95 m 3 t −1 when the N application rate is reduced to 50 kg N ha −1 (with a yield of 3.7 t ha −1 ). The grey WF can be further reduced to 75 m 3 t −1 by shifting the management package to manure N and deficit irrigation (with crop yield of 3.5 t ha −1 ). Although water pollution can thus be reduced dramatically, this comes together with a great yield reduction, and a much lower water productivity (larger green plus blue WF) as well. The overall (green, blue and grey) WF per tonne is found to be minimal at an N application rate of 150 kg N ha −1 , with manure, no-tillage and deficit irrigation (with crop yield of 9.3 t ha −1 ). The paper shows that there is a trade-off between grey WF and crop yield, as well as a trade-off between reducing water pollution (grey WF) and water consumption (green and blue WF). Applying manure instead of inorganic N and deficit instead of full irrigation are measures that reduce both water pollution and water consumption with a 16 % loss in yield.

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“…In the analysis of simulations, the specific deficit strategy that is optimal according to the model experiments and for yield reduction not exceeding 2 % is used. AquaCrop simulates water stress responses triggered by soil moisture depletion using three thresholds for a restraint on canopy expansion, stomatal closure and senescence acceleration (Steduto et al, 2009b).…”

Section: Management Packagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marginal cost curves for water footprint reduction in irrigated agriculture: guiding a cost-effective reduction of crop water consumption to a permit or benchmark level

Chukalla

Krol

2017

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Reducing the water footprint (WF) of the process of growing irrigated crops is an indispensable element in water management, particularly in water-scarce areas. To achieve this, information on marginal cost curves (MCCs) that rank management packages according to their costeffectiveness to reduce the WF need to support the decision making. MCCs enable the estimation of the cost associated with a certain WF reduction target, e.g. towards a given WF permit (expressed in m 3 ha −1 per season) or to a certain WF benchmark (expressed in m 3 t −1 of crop). This paper aims to develop MCCs for WF reduction for a range of selected cases. AquaCrop, a soil-water-balance and cropgrowth model, is used to estimate the effect of different management packages on evapotranspiration and crop yield and thus the WF of crop production. A management package is defined as a specific combination of management practices: irrigation technique (furrow, sprinkler, drip or subsurface drip); irrigation strategy (full or deficit irrigation); and mulching practice (no, organic or synthetic mulching). The annual average cost for each management package is estimated as the annualized capital cost plus the annual costs of maintenance and operations (i.e. costs of water, energy and labour). Different cases are considered, including three crops (maize, tomato and potato); four types of environment (humid in UK, sub-humid in Italy, semi-arid in Spain and arid in Israel); three hydrologic years (wet, normal and dry years) and three soil types (loam, silty clay loam and sandy loam). For each crop, alternative WF reduction pathways were developed, after which the most cost-effective pathway was selected to develop the MCC for WF reduction. When aiming at WF reduction one can best improve the irrigation strategy first, next the mulching practice and finally the irrigation technique. Moving from a full to deficit irrigation strategy is found to be a no-regret measure: it reduces the WF by reducing water consumption at negligible yield reduction while reducing the cost for irrigation water and the associated costs for energy and labour. Next, moving from no to organic mulching has a high cost-effectiveness, reducing the WF significantly at low cost. Finally, changing from sprinkler or furrow to drip or subsurface drip irrigation reduces the WF, but at a significant cost.

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Concepts and Applications of AquaCrop: The FAO Crop Water Productivity Model

Cited by 48 publications

References 27 publications

Evapotranspiration of tomato simulated with the CRITERIA model

Evapotranspiration of tomato simulated with the CRITERIA model

Grey water footprint reduction in irrigated crop production: effect of nitrogen application rate, nitrogen form, tillage practice and irrigation strategy

Marginal cost curves for water footprint reduction in irrigated agriculture: guiding a cost-effective reduction of crop water consumption to a permit or benchmark level

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