Water resources and water use efficiency in the North China Plain: Current status and agronomic management options

Fang, Qiannan; Li, Ma; Green, Timothy R.; Yu, Qiang; Wang, T.D.; Ahuja, Lajpat R.

doi:10.1016/j.agwat.2010.01.008

Cited by 218 publications

(133 citation statements)

References 100 publications

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“…Another much studied solution to growing water scarcity is improving water use efficiencies (Condon et al, 2004;Fang et al, 2010;Xue et al, 2000;Zhang et al, 1999Zhang et al, , 2003Zhang et al, , 2006. Increased water use efficiencies are obtained by having a greater share of the water input (I or I + R) taken up by the crop (T) and less "lost" through drainage (D) or evaporation (E).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards groundwater neutral cropping systems in the Alluvial Fans of the North China Plain

Oort

Wang

Vos

et al. 2016

Agricultural Water Management

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a b s t r a c tGroundwater levels in the North China Plain (NCP), the bread basket of China, have dropped more than one meter per year over the last 40 years, putting at risk the long term productivity of this region. Groundwater decline is most severe in the Alluvial Fans where our study site is located. Avoiding a foreseeable systems collapse requires region-wide changes in crop systems management, underpinned by sound environmental policies. Here, we explore the potential of crop system adaptation to remedy the excessive water use and quantify the likely yield penalties associated with more sustainable water use practices. Using simulations with the APSIM cropping systems model we explore production opportunities in an area within the NCP with intensive cropping and no access to irrigation from rivers. We estimate the attainable production levels for wheat and maize if agriculture were made groundwater neutral, through changes in crop sequence, irrigation practices and water conservation technologies (e.g. mulching with plastic film). Total grain production would drop by 44% compared to current practice if agriculture were made groundwater neutral. Water conservation by plastic film could limit this reduction to 21-33% but possible environmental impacts of plastic film need attention. This analysis facilitates a much needed debate on alternative agronomic practices and incentives through a quantitative comparison of adaptation options. Our biophysical analysis needs to be complemented with socio-economic considerations and discussions with all stakeholders. Similar analyses in other parts of the NCP are possible but require more accurate modelling of landscape hydrology and (towards the coast) risk of salt water intrusion.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards groundwater neutral cropping systems in the Alluvial Fans of the North China Plain

Oort

Wang

Vos

et al. 2016

Agricultural Water Management

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“…This overexploitation of water resources has led to serious environmental consequences such as rivers drying up, vanishing wetlands, ground subsidence and salinity intrusion. Shandong Peninsula, in the east of the North China Plain, is facing a particularly grim situation with an average total of 357 m 3 fresh water per capita (Fang et al 2010). The study region, the Huangshui River basin in Shandong, is typical for the region where water demands exceed the renewable water resources by about 25% (Sun et al 1998).…”

Section: Case Study 1: Coping With Agricultural Droughtsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shortage and surplus of water in the socio-hydrological context

Schumann

Nijssen

2014

Proc. IAHS

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Balancing the temporal variability of hydrological conditions in the long-and short-term is often essential for steady socio-economic conditions. However, this equilibrium is very fragile in many cases. Hydrological changes or socio-economic changes may destroy it in a short time. If we extend the bearing capacity of socio-hydrological systems we increase, in many cases, the harmful consequences of failures. Here, two case studies are discussed to illustrate these problems. The limited success at adapting water resources to increasing human requirements without consideration of the natural capacities will be discussed with the example of water use for irrigation in northeastern China. The demand for a new planning approach, which is based on a combination of monitoring, model-based impact assessments and spatial distributed planning, is demonstrated. The problems of water surplus, which becomes evident during floods, are discussed in a second case study. It is shown that flood protection depends strongly on expectations of flood characteristics. The gap between the social requirement for complete flood prevention and the remaining risk of flood damage becomes obvious. An increase of risk-awareness would be more sustainable than promises of flood protection, which are the basis for technical measures to affect floods and (or) to prevent flood damages.

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“…Soil properties including bulk density, soil texture, soil water content, saturated hydraulic conductivity and pH at different depths were measured. Bulk density was measured with the oven dry method, using a sample size of 100 cm 3 . The saturated hydraulic conductivities (K sat ) were measured with the constant-head method in the laboratory [73] .…”

Section: Crop Data Collection and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The North China Plain (NCP) is one of the most important grain production areas in China and home to more than 300 million people [1][2][3][4][5] . It produces approximately one-fourth of the country's grain output with only 5.57% of national water resources, and is currently experiencing intense water shortages and related environmental problems [6,7] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantitative analysis of yield and soil water balance for summer maize on the piedmont of the North China Plain using AquaCrop

Wang¹,

Huang²,

Li³

2015

Front. Agr. Sci. Eng.

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The North China Plain (NCP) is a major grain production area in China, but the current winter wheatsummer maize system has resulted in a large water deficit. This water-shortage necessitates the improvement of crop water productivity in the NCP. A crop water model, AquaCrop, was adopted to investigate yield and water productivity (WP) for rain-fed summer maize on the piedmont of the NCP. The data sets to calibrate and validate the model were obtained from a 3-year (2011-2013) field experiment conducted on the Yanshan piedmont of the NCP. The range of root mean square error (RMSE) between the simulated and measured biomass was 0.67-1.25 t$hm -2 , and that of relative error (RE) was 9.4%-15.4%, the coefficient of determination (R 2 ) ranged from 0.992 to 0.994. The RMSE between the simulated and measured soil water storage at depth of 0-100 cm ranged from 4.09 to 4.39 mm; and RE and R 2 in the range of 1.07%-1.20% and 0.880-0.997, respectively. The WP as measured by crop yield per unit evapotranspiration was 2.50-2.66 kg$m . The simulated impact of long-term climate (i.e., 1980-2010) and groundwater depth on crop yield and WP revealed that the higher yield and WP could be obtained in dry years in areas with capillary recharge from groundwater, and much lower values elsewhere. The simulation also suggested that supplementary irrigation in areas without capillary groundwater would not result in groundwater over-tapping since the precipitation can meet the water required by both maize and ecosystem, thus a beneficial outcome for both food and ecosystem security can be assured.

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Water resources and water use efficiency in the North China Plain: Current status and agronomic management options

Cited by 218 publications

References 100 publications

Towards groundwater neutral cropping systems in the Alluvial Fans of the North China Plain

Towards groundwater neutral cropping systems in the Alluvial Fans of the North China Plain

Shortage and surplus of water in the socio-hydrological context

Quantitative analysis of yield and soil water balance for summer maize on the piedmont of the North China Plain using AquaCrop

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