Water Needs of Willow (Salix L.) in Western Poland

Willows are one of the plants which can be used to produce biomass for energy purposes. Biomass production is classified as a renewable energy source. Increasing the share of renewable sources is one of the priority actions for European Union countries due to the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve the best possible growth of the willow and increase its biomass for fuel, it is crucial to provide optimal water conditions for its growth. The aim of the study was to determine the water requirements of willows under the conditions of the western Polish climate and to verify whether this area is potentially favourable for willow cultivation. The novelty of this paper lies in its multi-year climatic analysis in the context of willow water needs for the area of three voivodships: Lubusz, Lower Silesian, and West Pomeranian. This is one of the few willow water-needs analyses for this region which considers the potential for widespread willow cultivation and biomass production in western Poland. Reference evapotranspiration (ETo) was determined by the Blaney-Criddle equation and then, using plant coefficients, water needs for willow were determined. Calculations were carried out for the growing season lasting from 21 May to 31 October. The estimated water needs during the vegetation season amounted on average to 408 mm for the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, 405 mm for the Lubusz Voivodeship, and 402 mm for the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. The conducted analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that these needs do not differ significantly between the voivodeships. Therefore, it can be concluded that the water requirements of willows in western Poland do not differ significantly, and the whole region shows similar water conditions for willow cultivation. Furthermore, it was found that water needs are increasing from decade to decade, making rational water management necessary. This is particularly important in countries with limited water resources, such as Poland. Correctly determining the water requirements of willow and applying them to the cultivation of this plant should increase the biomass obtained. With appropriate management, willow cultivation in Poland can provide an alternative energy source to coal.

Securing the Environmental Water Requirements of Seasonally Ponding Wetlands: Partnering Science and Management Through Benefit Sharing

Although environmental flow regime assessments are becoming increasingly holistic, they rarely provoke water managers to enact the adaptive water reallocation mechanisms required to secure environmental water for wetlands. The conditions that cause science-based environmental flow assessments to succeed or fail in informing the management of environmental water requirements remain unclear. To begin to resolve these conditions, we used process tracing to deconstruct the sequence of activities required to manage environmental water in four case studies of seasonally ponding wetlands in Mediterranean and Mesoamerican watersheds. We hypothesized that, when the flexibility and equitability of the socioeconomic system do not match the complexity of the biophysical system, this leads to a failure of managers to integrate scientific guidance in their allocation of environmental water. Diagnostic evidence gathered indicates that science-management partnerships are essential to align institutional flexibility and socioeconomic equitability with the system’s ecohydrological complexity, and thus move from determination to reallocation of environmental water. These results confirm that institutions e.g., river basin organizations need to be supplemented by motivated actors with experience and skill to negotiate allocation and adaptive management of environmental water. These institutional-actor synergies are likely to be especially important in water scarce regions when the need to accommodate extreme hydrological conditions is not met by national governance capacity. We conclude by focusing on benefit sharing as a means to better describe the conditions for successful science-based environmental flow assessments that realize productive efficiency in environmental water allocation i.e., recognition of multiple values for both people and ecosystems.

Aufbereitung meteorologischer Daten zur Unterstützung einer globalen agrarmeteorologischen Beratung

<p>Im Rahmen einer agrarmeteorologischen Beratung ist die Berechnung der Verdunstung für spezifische Agrarkulturen mit geeigneten Modellen möglichst auf einer stündlichen Zeitskala erforderlich. Im DWD ist hierzu das Modell AMBAV (Agrarmeteorologisches Modell zur Berechnung der aktuellen Verdunstung) entwickelt worden und wird für die nationale agrarmeteorologische Beratung operationell mit Vorhersagedaten und für Wirkanalysen auch mit Klimadaten verwendet. Insbesondere hinsichtlich globaler Anwendungen liegen gemessene oder mit Klimamodellen berechnete meteorologische Datenzeitreihen häufig nur für eine tägliche Zeitskala, oder als Modelldaten für ausgewählte Elemente bestenfalls in einer 6-stündigen Zeitskala, vor. Dies sind Tagesmittel oder Tagessummen (z.B. Wind bzw. Globalstrahlung und Niederschlag) sowie gegebenenfalls tägliche Extremwerte (Minimum und Maximum der Lufttemperatur, stärkste Tagesböe).</p> <p>Zur Bereitstellung stündlicher Daten aus Tagesdaten wurde daher ein Präprozessor entwickelt, der gemessene Stationsdaten (Modus „Station“) oder modellierte Daten globaler Modelle (Modus „Gitter“) verwendet. Dabei wurde vorausgesetzt, dass im Vorfeld einer Erarbeitung von zeitlichen Disaggregierungsverfahren keine umfangreichen Klimaanalysen durchgeführt werden müssen sondern weitestgehend auf Erfahrung zurückgegriffen werden kann. Vorhandene Programme (z.B. MELODIST) konnten jedoch wegen teilweise anderer Zielstellung oder Datenanforderungen nicht ohne weiteres verwendet werden. So wurde z.B. für die Tagessumme der Globalstrahlung auf das Angström-Verfahren (FAO, 1998), für den Niederschlag auf das Kaskadenverfahren nach Olsson (1998), für die Lufttemperatur auf den „sin-exp-Ansatz“ nach Parton und Logan (1981) und für den Wind auf die „normierte Böen­geschwindigkeit“ (Verkaik, 2000) zurückgegriffen. Für erforderliche Interpolationen werden das Newton-Verfahren und das „cubic hermite spline“ verwendet.</p> <p>Die vorgestellten Verfahren werden mit Stationsdaten des ZAMF und beispielhaft mit Modelldaten des GFCS für Madagaskar angewendet.</p> <p><strong>Literatur</strong></p> <p>FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), 1998: Crop evaporation – Guidelines for computing crop water requirements. Irrigation and Drainage Paper 56, 300 p.</p> <p>Olsson, J., 1998: Evaluation of a scaling cascade model for temporal rainfall disaggregation. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 2, p.19-30.</p> <p>Parton, W.J. and J.A. Logan, 1981: A model for diurnal variation in soil and air temperature. Agricultural Meteorology, 23, p.205-216.</p> <p>Verkaik, J.W., 2000: Evaluation of two gustiness models for exposure correction calculations. Journal of Applied Meteorology, 39, p.1613-1626.</p>

Assessing Crop Water Requirements and a Case for Renewable-Energy-Powered Pumping System for Wheat, Cotton, and Sorghum Crops in Sudan

Climate change is changing global weather patterns, with an increase in droughts expected to impact crop yields due to water scarcity. Crops can be provided with water via underground pumping systems to mitigate water shortages. However, the energy required to pump water tends to be expensive and hazardous to the environment. This paper explores different sites in Sudan to assess the crop water requirements as the first stage of developing renewable energy sources based on water pumping systems. The crop water requirements are calculated for different crops using the CROPWAT and CLIMWAT simulation tools from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Further, the crop water requirements are translated into electrical energy requirements. Accurate calculations of the energy needed will help in developing cost-effective energy systems that can help in improving yields and reducing carbon emissions. The results suggest that the northern regions tend to have higher energy demands and that the potential for renewable energy should be explored in these regions, which are more susceptible to drought and where crops tend to be under higher stress due to adverse climate conditions.

Assessing effects of climate change on irrigation water demand in the Lombok River Basin, Indonesia

Irrigation water demand in the command area is affected by rainfall and climate conditions in the river basin. In climate change conditions, rainfall and temperature are predicted to increase and projected to impact irrigation water requirements significantly. Therefore, understanding the climate change effects on irrigation demand in the command area is significant to the river basin manager and planner for managing water resources effectively. This study aims to predict the impact of climate change and irrigation efficiency improvement on the irrigation water requirement in 2032-2040. This study used the CropWat model to estimate irrigation water requirements in 1995-2005 and 2032-2040. Irrigation water demand in the Dodokan watershed as a part of the Lombok river basin was computed using the historical rainfall and climate data from observation stations. Further, the observed data from 2006 to 2014 were projected into climate change in 2032-2040 as an input for the model to predict the demand in corresponding years. Result suggests that the change of annual irrigation water demand in the Dodokan watershed was expected to rise by 1.61% in 2032-2040 compared with 1995-2005, and irrigation efficiency improvement effort would decrease the demand -18.18% in the climate change period.