A GIS based application of Benfratello's method to estimate the irrigation deficit in a semiarid climate

Benfratello's Contribution to the study of the water balance of an agricultural soil (Contributo allo studio del bilancio idrologico del terreno agrario) was firstly published sixty years ago, in 1961. The paper provides a practical conceptual and lumped method to determine the irrigation deficit in agricultural disctricts. Since then, it has been used in many areas in Southern Italy.According to the method, percolation and capillary rise from the groundwater table are absent, and surface runoff happens only when the soil capability of storing water is exceeded. The method is therefore suitable for semiarid (and eventually arid) climates. Dry and wet seasons are defined on a climatic basis, as the season during which potential evapotranspiration is greater than precipitations (and the stored soil--water decreases), and that during which precipitations exceed potential evapotranspiration (and the stored soil--water inccreases).With these hypotheses, Benfratello proposed to adopt a power--relationship (with power m greater or equal to 0) to assess the ratio between the actual and the potential soil--water loss, as a function of the ratio between the stored soil--water and the maximum available storage. The solution provides, in a simple closed form, the actual soil--water loss as a function of the potential loss (which is a climatic characteristic), and generalizes previous approaches, viz Thorthwaite (1948) and Thornthwaite and Mather (1955) ones, for which m = 0 and m = 1, respectively.In this contribution we present a GIS based application of Benfratello's method to assess the soil water balance and the irrigation deficit of the semiarid Capitanata plane (4550 km2, Southern Italy), one of the most important agricultural districts in Italy. A comparison between the method and previous results for the same region will be provided as well. Due to its simplicity and to the small number of needed parameters, Benfratello's method might be regarded to as an effective tool to assess the effects of climatic, landuse and anthropogenic change scenarios on the soil water balance and on the irrigation deficit.

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New Approach to Improve the Soil Water Balance Method for Evapotranspiration Estimation

Water ◽

10.3390/w11122478 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (12) ◽

pp. 2478 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ali Rashid Niaghi ◽

Xinhua Jia

Keyword(s):

Energy Balance ◽

Water Balance ◽

Soil Water ◽

Clayey Soil ◽

Capillary Rise ◽

Soil Water Potential ◽

Growing Season ◽

Soil Water Balance ◽

Shallow Water Table ◽

Residual Method

As an important component of the water budget, quantifying actual crop evapotranspiration (ET) will enable better planning, management, and allocation of the water resources. However, accurate ET measurement has always been a challenging task in agricultural water management. In the upper Midwest, where subsurface drainage is a common practice due to the shallow ground water depth and heavy clayey soil, ET measurement using traditional ground-based methods is more difficult. In this study, ET was measured using the eddy covariance (EC), Bowen ratio-energy balance (BREB), and soil water balance (SWB) methods during the 2018 corn growing season, and the results of the three methods were compared. To close the energy balance for the EC system, the residual method was used. For the SWB method, capillary rise was included in the ET estimation and was calculated using the measured soil water potential. The change of soil water content for ET estimation using the SWB method was calculated in four different ways, including daily average, 24:00–2:00 average, 24:00–4:00 average, and 4:00 measurement. Through the growing season, six observation periods (OPs) with no rainfall or minimal rainfall events were selected for comparisons among the three methods. The estimated latent heat flux (LE) by the EC system using the residual method showed a 29% overestimation compared to LE determined by the BREB system for the entire growing season. After excluding data taken in May and October, LE determined by the EC system was only 10% higher, indicating that the main difference between the two systems occurred during the early and late of the growing season. By considering all six OPs, a 6%–22% LE difference between the EC and the BREB systems was observed. Except during the early growing and late harvest seasons, both systems agreed well in LE estimation. The SWB method using the average soil water contents between 24:00 and 2:00 time period to calculate the daily capillary rise produced the best statistical fit when compared to the ET estimated by the BREB, with a root-mean-square error of 1.15. Therefore, measuring ET using the capillary rise from a shallow water table between 24:00 and 2:00 could improve the performance of the SWB methodology for ET measurement.

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SIMWASER model as a tool for the assessment of soil water balance

Plant Soil and Environment ◽

10.17221/3609-pse ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 51 (No. 8) ◽

pp. 343-350 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

M. Šťastná ◽

E. Stenitzer

Keyword(s):

Water Balance ◽

Ground Water ◽

Soil Water ◽

Field Experiments ◽

Capillary Rise ◽

Shallow Groundwater ◽

Soil Water Balance ◽

Water Balance Components ◽

Ground Water Recharge ◽

Water Recharge

The objectives of our study were to apply, test and to present the ability of the deterministic simulation model SIMWASER computing soil-water balance components. Two case studies for the assessment of percolation losses from irrigated carrots to deep groundwater at Obersiebenbrunn in the Marchfeld (Austria) and ground water recharge and capillary rise from shallow groundwater in grass lysimeters at Berlin-Dahlem (Germany) are presented to demonstrate the performance of the model by a comparison between measured and simulated results from the field experiments. At Obersiebenbrunn, simulated percolation and evapotranspiration were 183 and 629 mm, while the respective measured values amounted to 198 and 635 mm. In Berlin-Dahlem simulated capillary rise and evapotranspiration were –122 and 458 mm, whereas the measurement showed –155 and 454 mm. These results showed the SIMWASER method as a good applicable tool to demonstrate and study plant – soil – water relationships as well as influence of land use, especially on ground water recharge.

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Soil Water Balance and Irrigation Strategies in an Agricultural District of Southern Italy

Italian Journal of Agronomy ◽

10.4081/ija.2010.193 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. 193

Author(s):

Domenico Ventrella ◽

Enza Di Giacomo ◽

Costanza Fiorentino ◽

Luisa Giglio ◽

Raffaele Lopez ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Water Balance ◽

Soil Water ◽

Southern Italy ◽

Soil Water Balance

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Comparative evaluation of water budgeting parameters under different rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivation methods

Journal of Applied and Natural Science ◽

10.31018/jans.v9i3.1370 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 9 (3) ◽

pp. 1373-1380

Author(s):

Sagar Dattatraya Vibhute ◽

A. Sarangi ◽

D. K. Singh ◽

K. K. Bandhyopadhyay ◽

S. S. Parihar ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Oryza Sativa ◽

Water Balance ◽

Soil Water ◽

Water Loss ◽

Root Zone ◽

Agricultural Research ◽

Oryza Sativa L ◽

Soil Water Balance ◽

Total Water ◽

Cultivation Methods

Water budgeting studies under different rice cultivation methods provides an insight into the amount of water used by the plant and percolated below the root zone for judicious water management. To undertake this study, a field experiment was conducted to estimate different soil water balance parameters under three rice (Oryza sativa L.) cultivation methods viz. Direct Seeded Rice (DSR), System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and Conventional Puddled Rice (CPR). The experiment was conducted during kharif 2013 and kharif 2014 season at research farm of Indian Council of Agricultural Research-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India. In this study, the rainfall and irrigation depth, Crop Evapotranspiration (ETc), percolation beyond root zone of the crop and surface runoff during the crop growth period were accounted in water budgeting. It was observed that the percolation be-yond root zone of the crop was the highest under CPR method amounting 963 mm and 831 mm, which was about 55% and 58% of total water applied during 2013 and 2014, respectively. However, the percolation beyond root zone of the crop was the lowest under DSR method of rice cultivation amounting 367 mm and 332 mm which was 43% and 39% of total water applied during 2013 and 2014, respectively. Water loss through Etc was around 30% of total water applied in all three cultivation methods for year 2013. However, it was 59%, 46% and 43% of total water ap-plied for DSR, SRI and CPR, respectively in the year 2014.This indicates more effective utilization of total applied water in the year 2014.The study highlighted that water loss through deep percolation beyond root zone is the major factor contributing to the high water requirement in CPR and SRI methods compare to DSR method. Moreover, different soil water balance components computed in this study will be helpful for estimation of irrigation water requirement in the rice growing areas of the agro-climatic region VI (Trans-gangetic Plains) of India.

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Spatial Analysis of Soil Water Balance in an Agricultural District of Southern Italy

Crop Modeling and Decision Support ◽

10.1007/978-3-642-01132-0_31 ◽

2009 ◽

pp. 282-290

Author(s):

D. Ventrella ◽

E. D. Giacomo ◽

L. Giglio ◽

M. Castellini ◽

D. Palumbo

Keyword(s):

Spatial Analysis ◽

Water Balance ◽

Soil Water ◽

Southern Italy ◽

Soil Water Balance

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Nitrogen doses and water balance components at phenological stages of corn

Scientia Agricola ◽

10.1590/s0103-90162009000400013 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 66 (4) ◽

pp. 515-521 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Monica Martins da Silva ◽

Paulo Leonel Libardi ◽

Flávia Carvalho Silva Fernandes

Keyword(s):

Water Balance ◽

Soil Water ◽

Control Volume ◽

Capillary Rise ◽

Soil Layer ◽

Soil Water Balance ◽

Water Balance Components ◽

Phenological Stages ◽

Unknown Quantity ◽

D Values

Determining the intensity of the water balance components in the control volume of a soil, and consequently defining the most likely periods of occurrence of a water deficit in a crop, is an exercise that requires knowledge about soil, climate and plant factors. This research aimed to evaluate soil water balance components at phenological stages of corn (Zea mays L.) under no-till system, when fertilized with 60, 120, and 180 kg ha-1 of nitrogen. The field experiment was carried out in Piracicaba, State of São Paulo, Brazil, on a Typic Hapludox. Evaluations were made in the 2004/2005 and 2005/2006 corn cropping seasons, divided over three stages according to the plant's phenology. Runoff was not taken into account. Measurements were made for precipitation (P), internal drainage (D) (or capillary rise) at a 0.8 m depth, and water storage variation (Δh) in the soil layer from 0.0-0.80 m; actual evapotranspiration (ET) was considered the unknown quantity of the equation. Corn grain yield was evaluated as well. In general, the soil water balance components were modified by N doses, because the soil had been relatively smaller Δh in treatments involving N application than in the treatment without N, resulting in smaller D values in those treatments, which resulted in greater absorption by the plants and greater ET. As expected, the plant developmental stage II had a higher ET value.

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