Crop Irrigation Demand Modelling Method Within the Conditions of Climate Change in the Dnipro-Donbas Canal

System management of irrigation under climate change conditions for determining the crop water demand and solutions for the water-saving

“…Climate change in Ukraine in the direction of increasing temperatures today has become an indisputable fact affecting the productivity of agricultural crops, which is confirmed in many scientific papers (Wilson et al 2021;Adamenko and Ogarenko 2019;Kovalchuk P. et al 2021;Trnka et al 2011). An increase in temperature leads to an increase in the evapotranspiration of agricultural crops, and accordingly changes the crop water demand.…”

“…Under the conditions of climate change, it is recommended to use the method (Kovalchuk P. et al 2021) to assess the change in the demand for water used for irrigation. The estimates of the increase in crop water demand in Ukraine, given in paragraphs 3.1 and (Kovalchuk P. et al 2021), proved the need to develop system management of irrigation as a system approach, including an algorithm for irrigation operational control based on the instrumental-calculative method and water-saving irrigation regimes. This approach, compared with works using short-term weather forecasting (Guo et al 2023;Perera et al 2014;Perera et al 2016), quantitatively reduces the risks of over-and under-irrigation and ensures water savings when administering irrigation.…”

“…The calculation method is based on the moisture supply of the year curves based on the deficit of the water balance of agricultural crops. The method consists in comparing these curves, estimating the total increase in the rate of crop water demand in years of different moisture availability, taken over a certain period (Kovalchuk P. et al 2021).…”

“…Different methods of calculating total evapotranspiration are known. Shtoiko's biophysical method (Kovalchuk P. et al 2021;Shtoiko et al 1977) is the most adapted to the conditions of Southern Ukraine. It was tested in Ukraine for operational irrigation planning (Guidelines for the operational planning of irrigation regimes 2004).…”

“…An assessment of the growth in water demand for a number of agricultural crops due to climate change for the Dnipro-Donbass canal zone (Ukraine) were made by the authors of this study and are given in (Kovalchuk P. et al 2021). Thus, the increased crop water demand for agricultural crops is replenished by irrigation (Kovalchuk et al 2019).…”