Water in the circular economy: using recycled water for sub-irrigation purposes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruud P. Bartholomeus ◽  
Marjolein H.J. van Huijgevoort ◽  
Arnaut van Loon
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Pilot Study ◽  
Water Supply ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Treated Wastewater ◽  
Agricultural Crop ◽  
Agricultural Water ◽  
Groundwater Availability

<p><span>Agricultural crop yields depend largely on soil moisture conditions in the root zone. Climate change leads to more prolonged drought periods that alternate with more intensive rainfall events. With unaltered water management practices, reduced crop yield due to drought stress will increase. Therefore, both farmers and water management authorities search for opportunities to manage risks of decreasing crop yields. Available groundwater sources for irrigation purposes are increasingly under pressure due to the regional coexistence of land use functions that are critical to groundwater levels or compete for available water. At the same time, treated wastewater from industries and domestic wastewater treatment plants are quickly discharged via surface waters towards sea. Exploitation of these freshwater sources may be an effective strategy to balance regional water supply and agricultural water demand. We present results of a pilot study in a drought sensitive region in the Netherlands, concerning agricultural water supply through reuse of industrial treated wastewater. The Bavaria Beer Brewery discharges treated wastewater to the surface water. Nevertheless, neighboring farmers invest in sprinkler irrigation to maintain their crop production during drought periods. Doing so, increasing pressure is put on the regional groundwater availability. Within a pilot study, a sub-irrigation system has been installed, by using subsurface drains, interconnected through a collector drain, and connected to an inlet control pit for the treated wastewater to enter the drainage system. Sub-irrigation is a subsurface irrigation method that can be more efficient than classical, aboveground irrigation methods using sprinkler installations. Additionally, sub-irrigated water that is not used for plant transpiration recharges the groundwater. We combine both process-based modeling of the soil-plant-atmosphere system and field experiments to i) investigate the amount of water that needs to be and that can be sub-irrigated, and ii) quantify the effect on soil moisture availability and herewith reduced needs for aboveground irrigation from groundwater.</span></p>

Effects of the use of drainage-/ infiltration systems in the Pleistocene uplands of the Netherlands

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janine A. de Wit ◽  
Ruud P. Bartholomeus ◽  
Gé A.P.H. van den Eertwegh ◽  
Marjolein H.J. van Huijgevoort
Keyword(s):  
Waste Water ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Boundary Conditions ◽  
Water Supply ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Scale Model ◽  
Groundwater System ◽  
External Water ◽  
The Impact

<p>The Netherlands is a low-lying, flood prone country, located in a delta. Most Dutch agricultural fields are drained to quickly get rid of excess water to increase crop production. Additionally, the freshwater demand of different sectors (agriculture, industry, drinking water) increases, causing an increased pressure on the groundwater system. The combination of fast drainage and increased use of groundwater for human activities led to declining groundwater tables in the Dutch Pleistocene uplands. Given the changing climate resulting in prolonged dry periods, solutions for water retention are needed to decrease the pressure on the groundwater system to guarantee the future water supply for different sectors.</p><p>One of the solutions could be to modify the current drainage systems to drainage-infiltration (DI)-systems with a dual purpose. First, the DI-system stores water during (heavy) rainfall in the soil, but if the risk of flooding increases, the DI-system discharges water. Second, (external) water is actively pumped into the drainage network to raise groundwater tables (subirrigation). Through efficient use of the available external water source (treated waste water, industrial waste water, surface water or groundwater) the pressure on the groundwater system reduces.</p><p>We focus on the data and model results of several field experiments using subirrigation conducted in the Dutch Pleistocene uplands (± 2017-2020). The effects of subirrigation on the groundwater table and soil moisture conditions will be shown, including water supply rate and hydrological boundary conditions. We also provide both the set-up and results of field scale model simulations (SWAP; Soil-Water-Atmosphere-Plant model) to i) quantify the impact of subirrigation on all components of the (regional) water balance (including transpiration, drainage and groundwater recharge), ii) quantify crop yields, and iii) optimize the configuration and management of subirrigation systems for different soil types, hydrological boundary conditions, and climate scenarios.  </p>

Field scale root zone soil moisture estimation by coupling cosmic-ray neutron sensor with soil moisture sensors

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hami Said ◽  
Georg Weltin ◽  
Lee Kheng Heng ◽  
Trenton Franz ◽  
Emil Fulajtar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Root Zone ◽  
Cosmic Ray ◽  
Agricultural Water ◽  
Field Scale ◽  
Agricultural Water Management ◽  
Soil Moisture Sensors ◽  
Major Disadvantage ◽  
Filter Approach

<p>Since it has become clear that climate change is having a major impact on water availability for agriculture and crop productivity, an accurate estimation of field-scale root-zone soil moisture (RZSM) is essential for improved agricultural water management. The Cosmic Ray Neutron Sensor (CRNS) has recently been used for field-scale soil moisture (SM) monitoring in large areas and is a credible and robust technique. Like other remote or proximal sensing techniques, the CRNS provides only SM data in the near surface. One of the challenges and needs is to extend the vertical footprint of the CRNS to the root zone of major crops. This can be achieved by coupling the CRNS measurements with conventional methods for soil moisture measurements, which provide information on soil moisture for whole rooting depth.</p><p>The objective of this poster presentation is to estimate field-scale RZSM by correlating the CRNS information with that from soil moisture sensors that provide soil moisture data for the whole root depth. In this study, the Drill and Drop probes which provide continuous profile soil moisture were selected. The RZSM estimate was calculated using an exponential filter approach.</p><p>Winter Wheat cropped fields in Rutzendorf, Marchfeld region (Austria) were instrumented with a CRNS and Drill & Drop probes. An exponential filter approach was applied on the CRNS and Drill and drop sensor data to characterize the RZSM. The preliminary results indicate the ability of the merging framework procedure to improve field-scale RZSM in real-time. This study demonstrated how to combine the advantages of CRNS nuclear technique (especially the large footprint and good representativeness of obtained data) with the advantages of conventional methods (providing data for whole soil profile) and overcome the shortcoming of both methods (the lack of information in the deeper part of soil profile being the major disadvantage of CRNS and the spatial limitation and low representativeness of point data being the major disadvantage of conventional capacitance sensors). This approach can be very helpful for improving agricultural water management.</p>

scholarly journals Modeling Regional Crop Yield and Irrigation Demand Using SMAP Type of Soil Moisture Data

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 904-916 ◽  
Author(s):  
Husayn El Sharif ◽  
Jingfeng Wang ◽  
Aris P. Georgakakos
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Crop Yield ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Cropping System ◽  
Crop Model ◽  
Agricultural Crop ◽  
Irrigation Amount ◽  
Soil Moisture Data ◽  
Efficient Data ◽  
Type Data

Abstract Agricultural models, such as the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer cropping system model (DSSAT-CSM), have been developed for predicting crop yield at field and regional scales and to provide useful information for water resources management. A potentially valuable input to agricultural models is soil moisture. Presently, no observations of soil moisture exist covering the entire United States at adequate time (daily) and space (~10 km or less) resolutions desired for crop yield assessments. Data products from NASA’s upcoming Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission will fill the gap. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the usefulness of the SMAP soil moisture data in modeling and forecasting crop yields and irrigation amount. A simple, efficient data assimilation algorithm is presented in which the agricultural crop model DSSAT-CSM is constrained to produce modeled crop yield and irrigation amounts that are consistent with SMAP-type data. Numerical experiments demonstrate that incorporating the SMAP data into the agricultural model provides an added benefit of reducing the uncertainty of modeled crop yields when the weather input data to the crop model are subject to large uncertainty.

scholarly journals Sustainable irrigation based on co-regulation of soil water supply and atmospheric evaporative demand

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jingwen Zhang ◽  
Kaiyu Guan ◽  
Bin Peng ◽  
Ming Pan ◽  
Wang Zhou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Water Supply ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Water Deficit ◽  
Irrigation Water ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Water Productivity ◽  
Soil Water Deficit ◽  
Irrigation Scheme ◽  
Irrigation Water Use

AbstractIrrigation is an important adaptation to reduce crop yield loss due to water stress from both soil water deficit (low soil moisture) and atmospheric aridity (high vapor pressure deficit, VPD). Traditionally, irrigation has primarily focused on soil water deficit. Observational evidence demonstrates that stomatal conductance is co-regulated by soil moisture and VPD from water supply and demand aspects. Here we use a validated hydraulically-driven ecosystem model to reproduce the co-regulation pattern. Specifically, we propose a plant-centric irrigation scheme considering water supply-demand dynamics (SDD), and compare it with soil-moisture-based irrigation scheme (management allowable depletion, MAD) for continuous maize cropping systems in Nebraska, United States. We find that, under current climate conditions, the plant-centric SDD irrigation scheme combining soil moisture and VPD, could significantly reduce irrigation water use (−24.0%) while maintaining crop yields, and increase economic profits (+11.2%) and irrigation water productivity (+25.2%) compared with MAD, thus SDD could significantly improve water sustainability.

Soil water conservation under cultivated fallows in clay soils of south-western Queensland

1976 ◽  
Vol 16 (81) ◽  
pp. 564 ◽  
Author(s):  
AJ Pressland ◽  
GN Batianoff
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Water Conservation ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Early Summer ◽  
Forage Crop ◽  
Deep Profile ◽  
A Site ◽  
Summer Fallow

Three field experiments to study the effect of time and method of cultivation during fallow on soil moisture accretion and crop growth were established at a site near Charleville, Queensland. The soil was a grey-brown cracking clay (46 per cent clay) typical of the Mitchell grass (Astrebla spp.) downs. In the first experiment, soil moisture accretion was followed on plots cultivated in November 1966 with either a disc plough or scarifier or not cultivated. Soil moisture was increased in the 90 cm deep profile by cultivation, but remained almost constant for the duration of the summer fallow. There was no difference in soil moisture under the disced and scarified plots. The remaining experiments were designed to study the effect of cultivations during fallow on soil moisture at the time of sowings. One early summer cultivation resulted in soil moisture levels similar to that gained from two or more ploughings. However, crop yields were highest following three cultivations. It is concluded that two or three cultivations during fallow decreases loss of soil water through transpiration of weeds and should increase the number of years a forage crop can be expected in south western Queensland.

Effects of pulverized fuel ash on the moisture characteristics of coarse-textured soils and on crop yields

1971 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Salter ◽  
D. S. Webb ◽  
J. B. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Crop Yields ◽  
Sandy Loam ◽  
Coarse Sand ◽  
Available Water ◽  
Fuel Ash ◽  
Pulverized Fuel ◽  
Pulverized Fuel Ash ◽  
Different Sources

SummaryIn field experiments carried out over a period of three years studies were made of the effects on soil moisture characteristics and crop yields of incorporating pulverized fuel ash into the surface 30 cm of a sandy loam and a coarse sand. Ash from two different sources was used at rates equivalent to 0, 125, 251, 502 and 753 t/ha and crops of carrots, lettuce, radish and red beet were grown.On every occasion when determinations were made the available-water capacities of the soils treated with 251 t/ha or more of ash were greater than the untreated soils; the largest increase (93%) was obtained with the highest rate of ash. Moisture release characteristics indicated that the increased amount of available water was retained in the soils at matric suctions between 0·05 and 1·0 atmospheres.Despite the increased amount of available water retained in these soils there was generally no beneficial effect on crop growth and yields.

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