Water consumption of cotton in the semi arid tracts of India

In the present study, evapotranspiration and other agrometeorological data for three different locations, viz., Akola. Bellary and Kovilpatti have been utilized to understand consumptive use and related aspects of cotton. Ratios of evapotranspiration to potential evapotranspiration (ET/PET) and evapotranspiration to total shortwave radiation (ET/Rs) increase gradually as the vegetative cover develops and shows year to year variation at same location. The energy summation indices have been worked out for all the three stations which indicate that the total yields are more dependent on consumptive water use by crop rather than energy summation indices.. The water use efficiency (WUE) of cotton crop also reveals wide variations in time and space.

Murray-Darling Basin Plan: Case Study in Market-Based Approach to Water Sharing in Australia

The Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) is an area in southeastern Australia that has the largest and most regulated river system in the country. Historically, it has been an area of conflict over water resources, with efforts to bring the different states together to negotiate water sharing since the early 1900s. In the 20th century, the focus of water policy was predominantly on water supply infrastructure: building large-scale dam storages, weirs, and other irrigation region infrastructure. However, increasing problems with both water quality and quantity from the 1970s onwards—such as acid sulphate soils, salinity, declines in vegetation health, and species loss—meant that more attention was turned to water demand management options. These included establishing formal water markets, trade liberalization, and water extraction caps. The National Water Initiative (2004) and the Water Act (2007) laid the groundwork in unbundling water and land ownership and created the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA). The MDBA was tasked with developing the MDB Plan (Basin Plan 2012) to readjust the balance between consumptive water use and the environment. The Basin Plan when implemented in 2012 aimed to return up to one third of consumptive water extraction to environmental use, making it one of the biggest reallocations of water to the environment in the world. It has predominantly used market-based approaches to do so. However, conflict over water sharing has remained a dominant feature of MDB water reform. Self-interest among states and irrigation interests have impacted environmental water recovery methods, resource expenditure, and allocation—subsequently weakening both the Basin Plan and water policy in general. Given current policy developments, there is real danger of targets not being met, and environmental sustainability being continually compromised. The ongoing issues of drought, climate change, and readdressing First Nations access to—and ownership of—water have emphasized distributional issues in water sharing. It is clear also that the Basin Plan has been wrongly blamed and misattributed for ongoing rural community declines, with current amendments and reductions in water reallocation targets a result of this. What is clear is that the Basin Plan is currently not the fully sustainable solution for water sharing that it set out to be. It will need to continually evolve, along with various institutions to support water governance and rural community economic development in general, to address existing overallocation and future climate challenges. The challenges of equity, rural community development, and distributional fairness lie firmly in the sphere of strong governance, high-quality data, and first-best economic and scientific policies.

Soil moisture balance and its application to yield monitoring of rainfed paddy at Raipur

The study presents a technique for computing soil moisture balance of paddy crop based on 10 years data from 1977-1988 except 1984 and 1987, from agro-meteorological observatory, Raipur Values of different components of the moisture balance have been determined and discussed. The stress values have been used to estimate possible yield reduction by devising an yield index. The study revealed that water demand of the plant is largest between tillering and reproductive stages. Dry matter production appears directly related to the consumptive water use. A significant association is observed between the yield index and the actual rice yield.

Effect of Different Levels of Irrigation on Yield and Yield Attributes of Winter Marigold Crop (Tagetes erecta L.)

Agriculture has been indispensable for the subsistence of the people of India in general and farmers in particular. It has naturally been the cornerstone of the Indian economy since time immemorial and agriculture has played a major role in the country's economy since its inception. The research work was done to study the effect of irrigation levels on the yield and growth of winter marigolds. Marigold (Tagetes erecta L.) had been taken twice the winter season of 2019-20 and 2020-21. The average flower yield (t/ha) was recorded under the treatment I1 (12.03 t/ha) was found maximum and it was followed by I2 (10.51 t/ha), I3 (9.73 t/ha). The consumptive water use (CWU) was found maximum (26.62 cm) in 100% of ETc and the lowest CWU was found (21.03 cm) in 80% of ETc through a drip system of irrigation in the cropping year 2020-21. Similarly, in 2019-20 CWU was found maximum (18.02 cm) in 100% of ETc, while the lowest CWU was found (14.42 cm) in 80% of ETc. The water use efficiency was found highest in I3 (0.77 t/ha/cm) and minimum WUE was found in I2 (0.525 t/ha/cm) in the cropping year 2019-20. For 2020-21, a maximum WUE was recorded in I2 (0.497 t/ha/cm) and the minimum WUE in I3 (0.335 t/ha/cm).

A Framework to Automatic Detect Center Pivots Using Land Use and Land Cover Data

Water management is a key field to support life and economic activity nowadays. The greatly increased mechanization of agriculture, mainly through center pivot irrigation systems, represents a big challenge to control this resource. Irrigated agriculture makes up the large majority of consumptive water use, therefore it is important to identify and quantify these systems. Currently, with 6.95x10⁶ ha, Brazil is among the 10 largest countries in irrigation areas in the world. In this study, a combined Computer Vision and Machine Learning approach is proposed for the identification of center pivots in remote sensing images. The methodology is based on Circular Hough Transform (CHT) and Balanced Random Forest (BRF) classifier using vegetation indices NDVI/SAVI generated from Landsat 8 images and Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) data provided by project MapBiomas. The candidate's circles of pivots identified on images are filtered based on vegetation behavior and shape characteristics of these areas. Our approach was able to detect 7358 pivots, reaching 83.86% of Recall for 52 scenes analyzed overall Brazil compared with mapping done by the Brazilian National Water and Sanitation Agency (ANA). In some scenes, the Recall reaches up to 100%.

Use of Routine Leaching Fraction Testing to Guide Irrigation at a Container Nursery

Efficient irrigation during container plant production is difficult to achieve as irrigation is scheduled daily or multiple times per day to maintain an adequate supply of water in the limited substrate volume. Leaching fraction (container drainage/water applied) testing is one strategy to monitor and adjust irrigation to limit excessive container drainage. We compared an automated irrigation schedule based on routine leaching fraction testing and weather (LFI) with a nursery's traditional irrigation practice (TIP). Compared to TIP, LFI reduced water applied in four of five sprinkler-irrigated trials without a notable growth affect; LFI increased water applied in a fifth trial but plant growth was also increased. Compared to TIP, LFI reduced water applied in all three micro-irrigated trials but also reduced growth in one of the trials. LFI reduced water applied by an average of 21% [57.8 vs. 73.1 kL·ha−1· d−1 (15,300 gal/acre/day) or $3,000 ha−1yr−1 ($1,200/acre/year) at a pumping cost of $0.53/kL ($0.20/1000 gal). We concluded that the greater economic benefit of water savings was to provide increased capacity for additional production under consumptive water use limitations rather than to reduce the unit cost of production. Index words: automation, evapotranspiration, sprinkler, micro-irrigation, weather. Species used in this study: Leyland cypress, Cupressus × leylandii A.B. Jacks. and Dallim., Parson juniper, Juniperus squamata Gordon ‘Expansa Parsonii', crape myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica L. × fauriei Koehne ‘Natchez', Indian hawthorn, Raphiolepis indica (L.) Lindl., sweet viburnum, Viburnum odoratissimum Ker Gawl.

From Torrents to Trickles: Irrigation's Future in Africa and Asia

Irrigation has been a key component of agricultural intensification and transformation in Asia and has the potential to take on the same role in Sub-Saharan Africa. Irrigation has contributed to increased food production, lower food prices, higher rural employment, and overall agricultural and economic growth. At the same time, irrigation—through its large consumptive water use—has contributed to water depletion, degradation, and pollution; moreover, it has benefitted richer farmers more than poorer farmers. This article reviews the contributions and challenges of irrigation and identifies a series of measures to increase the sustainability and equity of irrigation going forward. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Resource Economics, Volume 13 is October 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.