Agriculture, Environment & Society

Agriculture, Environment & Society

SWAP: a robust planning tool for quantifying the effect of deficit irrigation on the agricultural water productivity indices (case study: wheat farm)

Document Type : Original research article

Authors
1 Water Science and Engineering Department, University of Jiroft, Jiroft, Iran
2 Water Science and Engineering Department, Kashmar Higher Education Institute, Kashmar, Iran
Abstract
Due to the scarcity of water resources worldwide, it is essential to determine the water productivity indices. In this study, the SWAP model was used to determine the agricultural water productivity indices for three wheat farms in the arid regions of Iran. The model was calibrated and validated for each study farm using a large number of field-measured data. The results showed that the model could satisfactorily predict moisture profiles. SWAP model calculated water productivity. Due to the results of this study, it is possible to increase wheat yield by 14%, if the irrigation scheduling is correctly planed. Deficit irrigation by 30% showed no significant effect on reducing yield. Appropriate irrigation scheduling has increased WPETdp (yield to crop actual evapotranspiration plus deep percolation ratio) and WPIrr (yield to total applied water ratio) by 48 and 61%, respectively. High evaporation at the initial stages of growth decreases WPET (yield to crop actual evapotranspiration ratio) by 28% compared to WPT (yield to crop actual transpiration ratio). Improving agricultural operations such as mulch or soil application using subsurface irrigation methods can improve WPET. Reducing the applied irrigation depth had a negligible impact on the WPET and WPT indices, but the WPETdp and WPIrr indices exhibited a significant increase.

Highlights

  • In this study, the SWAP model was used to determine the agricultural water productivity indices for three wheat farms.
  • The paper shows that irrigation scheduling has increased WPETdp and WPIrr by 48 and 61%, respectively.
  • The paper shows that Deficit irrigation has little impact on the WPT and WPET

Keywords

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  • Receive Date 05 February 2023
  • Revise Date 14 April 2023
  • Accept Date 23 April 2023