Water Use and Soil Water Balance of Mediterranean Vineyards under Rainfed and Drip Irrigation Management: Evapotranspiration Partition and Soil Management Modelling for Resource Conservation

Abstract

Vineyards represent complex Mediterranean agrosystems that deliver significant ecosystem services to society. Yet, many vine-growers still need to assimilate the importance of crop and soil management to the conservation of soil and water resources. The main objective of this study was to evaluate water use and the water balance terms in rainfed and irrigated vineyards in Italy and Portugal, respectively, in both cases aiming at the sustainability of natural resources use. The SIMDualKc model is used for both sites after calibration and validation by fitting soil water content measurements. The Italian case study focused on the impacts of inter-row conservation management in hillslope vineyards while the Portuguese case study analyzed irrigation water management under scarcity in flat vineyards. For the Italian vineyards, the model results focused on the evapotranspiration fluxes and their partition, control of surface runoff, and soil water recharge provided by the inter-row soil management using cover crops. Model results of the Portuguese case study showed the need for improving irrigation water use and the terms of water balance, namely referring to percolation and soil water evaporation. Both case studies further demonstrated the advantages of using computational tools to better cope with climate variability in the Mediterranean region and made evident the benefits of improved crop and soil management practices in counteracting land degradation and valuing the use and conservation of natural resources.

Searching for Sustainable-Irrigation Issues of Clementine Orchards in the Syrian Akkar Plain: Effects of Irrigation Method and Canopy Size on Crop Coefficients, Transpiration, and Water Use with SIMDualKc Model

“…The reported goodness-of-fit indicators for the E1 and E2 experiments are within the ranges of values reported in the literature for the SIMDualKc simulations of perennial crops for vineyards [67,[76][77][78], peach orchards [42], and olive groves [66,79,80]. They are also similar to those reported by Darouich et al [52,53] for horticultural crops grown in the same edapho-climatic conditions in the Akkar plain.…”

“…For Experiment 1 (2007Experiment 1 ( -2011, an Fr of 0.55 was adopted for all crop stages, which corresponds to the upper value suggested for medium density and height of citrus trees. For Experiment 2, an Fr value of 0.61 was assumed, corresponding to the central value of The reported goodness-of-fit indicators for the E1 and E2 experiments are within the ranges of values reported in the literature for the SIMDualKc simulations of perennial crops for vineyards [67,[76][77][78], peach orchards [42], and olive groves [66,79,80]. They are also similar to those reported by Darouich et al [52,53] for horticultural crops grown in the same edapho-climatic conditions in the Akkar plain.…”

“…CR was not considered in this study because the water table was at a depth greater than 10 m. The flux diagram of the model (Figure 3) identifies the data required, the main calculation algorithms, and the diverse type of model outputs. Further details of the SIMDualKc model are provided in Rosa et al [45] and described in various papers, in particular relatively to drip-irrigated olive orchards and vineyards [66,67]. The model makes possible several irrigation management options, as identified in the flowchart.…”

Advances in Ecohydrology for Water Resources Optimization in Arid and Semi-arid Areas

“…This Special Issue collected 10 original contributions focused on ecohydrology. Almost all concerned field investigations took place in arid and semi-arid areas [8][9][10][11][13][14][15][16], although some of them were from more humid environments [12]; only one investigated the optimization of water resource in a controlled laboratory environment [17]. Furthermore, half of them were developed in China [8][9][10][11]14], while the rest were from Kansas, United States [15], Korea [16], Brazil [12] and Mediterranean Europe (Italy and Portugal) [13,17].…”

“…The main goal of this Special Issue (SI) was to present advanced research and applications in ecohydrology, with a focus on water resources' optimization in arid and semi-arid areas. Overall, the contributions gathered in this SI account for the ecohydrology of (i) natural areas, including deserts [8,9], wetlands [10], grasslands-rangelands [11] and forests [12], (ii) cultivated areas, including orchards [13] or arable lands [14], or (iii) without specific focus on the environment-vegetation interaction [15][16][17]. most common contributions were studies on groundwater and transpiration-evapotranspiration.…”