Long-Term Water Balance of Selected Field Crops in Different Agricultural Regions of the Czech Republic Using Fao-56 and Soil Hydrological Approaches

Abstract

Long-term water balance (WB) of four selected crops (winter wheat, oilseed rape, silage maize, semi-early potatoes) was determined at the field block scale in the Czech Republic for all agricultural growing areas (AGAs): maize-, beet-, potato- and mountain-AGAs for the 1981–2010 period. A novel approach for the calculation of WB was employed, which combined the FAO-56 method for crop water requirements (CWRs) with sources of available water from precipitation, soil, and groundwater. The computed WB was divided into four categories of soil water availability based on soil hydrolimits and crop features: Categories 1 and 2 with zero or mild occurrence of crop water stress; categories 3 and 4 with intermediate and severe occurrence of crop water stress. The winter crops were affected by water stress to a lesser extent (the area of categories 3 and 4: wheat 20.1%, oilseed rape 14.5%) as compared with spring crops (the area of categories 3 and 4: maize 39.6%, potatoes 41%). The highest water deficit was recorded for all crops in the maize-AGA due to low precipitation and high CWRs. Most available water was revealed to occur in the mountain-AGA. A strong need for the adoption of measures towards the optimization of water regimes on agricultural land was indicated. The present study shows a promising approach for evaluating and proposing changes of area of cultivated crops with the appropriate tillage and agricultural water management in terms of satisfactory crop water requirements.

Influence of precipitation and temperature on maize production in the Czech Republic from 2002 to 2019

“…The Czech Republic is not generally considered as a drought-prone region in Europe, but there are more and more droughts were recorded, for example, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2014, 2015, and 2018. It was reported that the highest water deficit was recorded for maize growing areas from the field block scale in the Czech Republic due to low precipitation and high water requirements, and about 39.6% (9745.5 km 2 ) of silage maize growing area was effected 25 . The droughts had a profound effect on national and regional agricultural production in the Czech Republic, with yields being consistently lower than in normal years 26 .…”

Modeling canopy water content in the assessment for rainfall induced surface and groundwater nitrate contamination index from cropland N-fertilizer in Bilate downstream

“…Since crop canopy water content is conditional to the amount water getting in root zone from rainfall (Imran et al, 2015), it can be considered as independent variable in modeling simulation to the dependent variable of crop land zonal statistics (Hunt, Jr. et al, 2009). With this principle, it can be possible to predicate crop canopy water and to observe crop root zone soil water content (Duffková et al, 2019;Manual, 2002;Tadesse et al, 2015). As the result, crop land zonal statistics which has used to join crop land shape file of classified crop land.The wet season crop land zonal biomass statistics of main crops in the study area (Fig 7) is under acceptable range for crop coefficient [Kc] for all crop growth curve for rainy season uncertainty interval (start/maximum/end) (0.25 ≤ /Crop zonal EVI≤ 0.75) (FAO ASIS, 2022).…”

Relationships between Insufficient Drinking Water Supply and the Socio-Economic Development of Small Municipalities: Mayors’ Opinions from the Czech Republic

“…On one hand, there is the professionalism and the certainty of supply from a regional water supply system [37,88], and on the other is the advantage of self-sufficiency and the positive impact of the local community's involvement in the use of local natural resources and their help in protecting them [40,41,57,89]. A key factor in the selection of a proper solution can be the natural conditions of individual municipalities; therefore, on a local level, their detailed analysis and monitoring is recommended as a starting point for adaptation measures for the impacts of climate change [90][91][92].…”