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Sustainable Management and Regulation of Agricultural Water Resources in the Context of Global Climate Change

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Water Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2024 | Viewed by 8089

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Xiaolin Yang

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Guest Editor

College of Water Resources & Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China
Interests: mechanism and regulation of agricultural efficient water use; water-suitable structure adjustment and multi-objective optimization; water-food-energy-carbon system coupling and simulation; climate change and water resources

Prof. Dr. Wenfeng Liu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

College of Water Resources & Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China
Interests: water-food-environment-trade nexus; large-scale modelling; climate change; water resource management; water scarcity assessment

Dr. Wen Yin

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Guest Editor

State Key Laboratory of Aridland Crop Science; College of Agronomy, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China
Interests: regulation mechanism of water use with diversified planting of crops; technologies and mechanisms for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in farmland; mechanism of soil carbon sequestration in farmland
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Water management for agriculture is becoming increasingly complex in the context of global climate change, which has intensified the risks of agricultural water management. Particularly, climate change will add substantial economic and social challenges in regions where water scarcity is already a concern. While some aspects of climate change such as increased precipitation and CO₂ concentration may bring some localized benefits, there is a range of adverse impacts on agricultural production, including reduced water availability and more frequent extreme weather. Therefore, efforts to develop adaptation strategies through sustainable management and regulation of agricultural water resources can benefit more efficient use of limited agricultural water resources, by enhancing our understanding of the possible risks and adaptation strategies. These understandings could assist in developing priority measures for managing water resources for agricultural production. Evaluating and characterizing the efforts and benefits of agronomic and policy measures for agricultural water use is essential for climate change adaptation and keeping food security. Finally, this advanced knowledge about agricultural water management can assist policymakers to formulate robust measures to reduce the vulnerability of the agricultural sector to climate change and increase the system's resilience.

This Special Issue aims to identify historical and future trends and changes in crop evapotranspiration and irrigation amount, to evaluate the effect of agronomic measurements, irrigation technologies, biological water-saving technologies and water policy regulations on improving water use efficiency, and to propose sustainable pathways for adapting future climate change, especially future extreme climate events.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews on experiments and modeling are all welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

Map the temporal and spatial variations of crop evapotranspiration;
Observe and project the impacts of climate change on agricultural or crop water use;
Evaluate agronomic and irrigation water-saving technologies for enhancing adaptation of food production to climate change;
Biological water-saving technologies including cultivars and physiology for improving agricultural water use efficiency;
Water policy initiatives for sustainable agriculture water management under climate change
Scale effect of agricultural water use estimation;
Contribution of blue water and green water toward water scarcity mitigation.

Dr. Xiao Lin Yang
Prof. Dr. Wenfeng Liu
Dr. Wen Yin
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

water scarcity
irrigation
agriculture water management
crop evapotranspiration
water use efficiency
climate change
adaptation
regulation

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 2011 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Role of River Vigilance Committees to Address New Socio-Climatic Conditions in Chile: Insights from Ostrom’s Design Principles for Common-Pool Resource Institutions

by Natalia Julio, Amaya Álvez, Rodrigo Castillo, Kimberly Iglesias, Diego Rivera, Fernando Ochoa and Ricardo Figueroa

Sustainability 2024, 16(3), 1027; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16031027 - 25 Jan 2024

Viewed by 802

Abstract

Chile is currently facing a mega-drought, which is expected to lead to a significant increase in the water stress level. Social conflicts related to water use are linked to the effects of climate change and a governance system marked by the privatization of the natural resources of public interest. This study aims to analyze whether the current Chilean water governance scheme can adapt to the effects of climate change through a critical observation of the role of the River Vigilance Committees (RVCs; private user organizations exercising the public function of water management), from the perspective of Ostrom’s design principles for long-enduring Common-pool Resource (CPR) institutions. We analyze legal approaches, management mechanisms, and decision-making processes under the socio-climatic conditions that the country is currently facing. The results indicate that, with a few exceptions, the Chilean governance system does not allow RVCs to effectively incorporate the design principles—and, therefore, to achieve adaptation—due to dispersed functions, the exclusion of water users, and a lack of planning at different levels. We propose that water governance should consider the creation of River Basin Boards with broader planning powers, as well as the incorporation of different relevant stakeholders. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Management and Regulation of Agricultural Water Resources in the Context of Global Climate Change)

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19 pages, 6449 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Statistical Analysis of Climate Trends and Impacts on Groundwater Sustainability in the Lower Indus Basin

by Waqas Ahmed, Suhail Ahmed, Jehangir F. Punthakey, Ghulam Hussain Dars, Muhammad Shafqat Ejaz, Abdul Latif Qureshi and Michael Mitchell

Sustainability 2024, 16(1), 441; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16010441 - 04 Jan 2024

Viewed by 1141

Abstract

Agricultural intensification is increasing global demand for water, with groundwater especially susceptible given its year-round reliability. Climate change impacts on groundwater recharge exacerbate uncertainties for future access and use, especially for large aquifers across alluvial plains such as the Indus Basin of Pakistan. To generate better understanding of climate change impacts on groundwater balances in such contexts, we used MODFLOW 2005 to quantify the groundwater budget of the Northern Rohri Canal Command Area under RCP 4.5 and 8.5 climatic scenarios, while also taking climatic regionalisation into account. Under a baseline scenario, total annual pumping in the northern Rohri command was estimated to be 3.619 billion cubic metres (BCM), and the total net loss in storage over the simulation period from October 2010 to April 2014 was estimated at 1.244 BCM per year. By 2047, net decline in storage is projected to more than double to 2.185 per year under RCP 4.5 scenario and 2.214 under RCP 8.5. Our estimates suggest that a sustainable yield across the command area should be managed at approximately 3 ± 0.3 BCM per year to ensure sufficient adaptive reserves of groundwater for access during times of drought and inadequate surface supply, while also reducing waterlogging impacts from high watertables. This first-time estimate of sustainable yield provides irrigation system managers with an overall guide from which divisional-scale measures to achieve the goal can be identified through stakeholder engagement. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Management and Regulation of Agricultural Water Resources in the Context of Global Climate Change)

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15 pages, 3120 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Towards Affordable Precision Irrigation: An Experimental Comparison of Weather-Based and Soil Water Potential-Based Irrigation Using Low-Cost IoT-Tensiometers on Drip Irrigated Lettuce

by Ahmed A. Abdelmoneim, Roula Khadra, Angela Elkamouh, Bilal Derardja and Giovanna Dragonetti

Sustainability 2024, 16(1), 306; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16010306 - 28 Dec 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 845

Abstract

Predictive weather-based models are widely used to schedule irrigation through the estimation of crop evapotranspiration. However, perceiving real-time crop water requirements remains a challenge. This research aims at field validating and exploiting a low-cost IoT soil moisture tensiometer prototype to consequently compare weather-based irrigation to soil water moisture-based irrigation in terms of yield and crop water productivity. The prototype is based on the ESP32 microcontroller and BMP180 barometric sensor. When compared to a mechanical tensiometer, the IoT prototype proved its accuracy, registering an average R² equal to 0.8 and an RMSE range of 4.25–7.1 kPa. In a second step, the irrigation of a Romaine lettuce field (Lactuca sativa L.) cultivated under a drip system was managed according to two different scenarios: (1) using the data feed from the IoT tensiometers, irrigation was performed to keep the soil water potential between −15 and −25 kPa; (2) using the data provided by the in-situ weather station to estimate the crop water requirements. When comparing the yield, no significant difference was registered between the two scenarios. However, the water productivity was significantly higher, registering a 36.44% increment in scenario 1. The experiment highlights the water-saving potential achievable through real-time monitoring of soil moisture conditions. Since it is a low-cost device (82.20 USD), the introduced prototype facilitates deploying and managing a fleet of sensors for soil water potential live mapping. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Management and Regulation of Agricultural Water Resources in the Context of Global Climate Change)

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22 pages, 2741 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sustainability of a Rainfed Wheat Production System in Relation to Water and Nitrogen Dynamics in the Soil in the Eyre Peninsula, South Australia

by Vinod Phogat, Jirka Šimůnek, Paul Petrie, Tim Pitt and Vilim Filipović

Sustainability 2023, 15(18), 13370; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151813370 - 06 Sep 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 835

Abstract

Rainfed wheat production systems are usually characterized by low-fertility soils and frequent droughts, creating an unfavorable environment for sustainable crop production. In this study, we used a processed-based biophysical numerical model to evaluate the water balance and nitrogen (N) dynamics in soils under rainfed wheat cultivation at low (219 mm, Pygery) and medium rainfall (392 mm, Yeelanna) sites in south Australia over the two seasons. Estimated evapotranspiration components and N partitioning data were used to calibrate and validate the model and to compute wheat’s water and N use efficiency. There was a large disparity in the estimated water balance components at the two sites. Plant water uptake accounted for 40–50% of rainfall, more at the low rainfall site. In contrast, leaching losses of up to 25% of seasonal rainfall at the medium rainfall site (Yeelanna) indicate a significant amount of water evading the root zone. The model-predicted N partitioning revealed that ammonia–nitrogen (NH₄–N) contributed little to plant N nutrition, and its concentration in the soil remained below 2 ppm throughout the crop season except immediately after the NH₄–N-based fertilizer application. Nitrate–nitrogen (NO₃–N) contributed to most N uptake during both seasons at both locations. The N losses from the soil at the medium rainfall site (3.5–20.5 kg ha⁻¹) were mainly attributed to NH₄–N volatilization (N_v) and NO₃–N leaching (N_L) below the crop root zone. Water productivity (8–40 kg ha⁻¹ mm⁻¹) and N use efficiency (31–41 kg kg⁻¹) showed immense variability induced by climate, water availability, and N dynamics in the soil. These results suggest that combining water balance and N modeling can help manage N applications to optimize wheat production and minimize N losses in rainfed agriculture. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Management and Regulation of Agricultural Water Resources in the Context of Global Climate Change)

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16 pages, 1633 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Improving Wheat Yield and Water-Use Efficiency by Optimizing Irrigations in Northern China

by Xin Zhang, Jianheng Zhang, Jiaxin Xue and Guiyan Wang

Sustainability 2023, 15(13), 10503; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151310503 - 04 Jul 2023

Viewed by 1290

Abstract

Achieving the goal of increasing both crop yield and water-use efficiency with a better irrigation regime is a major challenge in semi-arid areas. In this study, we presented a two-season field experiment (October 2018–June 2019 and October 2019–June 2020) that considered drought stresses, i.e., no irrigation (W0), irrigated in jointing (W1), both in jointing and flowering (W2) after re-greening, and wheat varieties (S086; J22). The results showed that a 45.5% excess of irrigation water input did not promote wheat yield (W1 vs. W2). S086 was beneficial for the usage of soil water consumption under a low amount of irrigation water in both seasons. In addition, irrigation positively affected the activities of superoxide dismutase and catalase in flag leaves (p < 0.05). A decrease in irrigation helped to increase the concentrations of soluble sugar and proline and decrease the amount of malondialdehyde content for S086. For the water- and irrigation-water-use efficiency, W1 was significantly increased by 20.6–21.7% and 38.3–39.3% in 2018–2019 and 23.4–24.4% and 43.8–44.7% in 2019–2020, respectively, as compared to W2. Additionally, a higher yield for S086 than J22 was found under deficit irrigation. Consequently, our study suggested that the S086 variety combined with a total amount of irrigation water of 165 mm might be recommended to meet the win–win goal of high crop yields and water-use efficiency for reducing ground water depletion in the future. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Management and Regulation of Agricultural Water Resources in the Context of Global Climate Change)

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18 pages, 3466 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sustainable Analysis of Maize Production under Previous Wheat Straw Returning in Arid Irrigated Areas

by Pan Li, Wen Yin, Guiping Chen, Yao Guo, Zhilong Fan, Falong Hu, Fuxue Feng, Hong Fan and Wei He

Sustainability 2023, 15(11), 8935; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15118935 - 01 Jun 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 890

Abstract

Conservation tillage is widely recognized as an important way to improve soil quality, ensure food security and mitigate climate change. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the subject in terms of sustainable evaluation of environmental and economic benefits of the combination of no tillage and straw returning for maize production in arid irrigated areas. In this study, grain yield (GY) and water use efficiency based on grain yield (WUE_GY), soil carbon emission characteristics and economic benefits were investigated, and a sustainability evaluation index based on the above indicators was assessed in maize production under a wheat–maize rotation system from 2009 to 2012. Four wheat straw returning approaches were designed: no tillage with 25 to 30 cm tall wheat straw mulching (NTSMP), no tillage with 25 to 30 cm tall wheat straw standing (NTSSP), conventional tillage with 25 to 30 cm tall wheat straw incorporation (CTSP), and conventional tillage without wheat straw returning (CTP). The results showed that NTSMP treatment could effectively regulate water consumption characteristics of maize fields and meet the water conditions for high grain yield formation, thus gaining higher GY and WUE_GY. NTSMP increased GY and WUE_GY of maize by 13.7–17.5% and 15.4–16.7% over the CTP treatment, and by 5.6–9.0% and 2.3–11.2% over the CTSP treatment, respectively. Meanwhile, compared with CTP, the NTSMP treatment could effectively reduce carbon emissions from maize fields, where average soil carbon emission fluxes (AC_f), carbon emission (CE) and water use efficiency based on carbon emission (WUE_CE) were reduced by 17.7–18.9%, 11.1–11.2% and 8.8–12.8% and carbon emission efficiency (CEE) was increased by 10.2–14.7%. In addition, the NTSMP and NTSSP treatments could effectively increase total output and reduce human labor and farm machinery input, resulting in higher economic benefit. Among them, the NTSMP treatment was the most effective, net income (NI) and benefit per cubic meter of water (BPW) were increased by 16.1–34.2% and 19.1–31.8% over the CTP treatment, and by 13.2–13.3% and 9.8–15.6% over the CTSP treatment, respectively. The sustainability analysis showed that the NTSMP treatment had a high sustainability evaluation index and was a promising field-management strategy. Therefore, no tillage with 25 to 30 cm tall wheat straw mulching is a sustainable maize-management practice for increasing economic benefits and improving environmental impacts in arid irrigated areas. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Management and Regulation of Agricultural Water Resources in the Context of Global Climate Change)

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20 pages, 4339 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Simulation-Based Optimization Model for Control of Soil Salinization in the Hetao Irrigation District, Northwest China

by Yunquan Zhang and Peiling Yang

Sustainability 2023, 15(5), 4467; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15054467 - 02 Mar 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1302

Abstract

The average annual water diversion of the Hetao Irrigation District (HID) from the Yellow River is 4.5 billion cubic meters, mainly used for surface irrigation. Because the groundwater depth is shallow, strong evaporation conditions and unmatched irrigation conditions lead to serious soil salinization in the area; thus, the irrigation area’s ecological environment is fragile. Based on the current situation of the Yellow River irrigation project in the area, an interval two-stage robust stochastic optimization model is proposed to address the problem. In 2015, the Shuguang Experimental Station in the middle of the HID, Inner Mongolia, discussed the impact of different degrees of water–salt coordinated regulation on water consumption, yield and price of wheat, maize and sunflower under drip irrigation conditions. The obtained results provide the water shortage and water distribution targets of multiple water sources and multiple water levels in five irrigation areas of the HID. Those water distribution targets were used as the main input parameter and entered into the SALTMOD model based on the principle of water and salt balance. The output included data on groundwater mineralization and groundwater depth. It was observed that (1) integrated interval two-stage robust stochastic programming and the SALTMOD Model to couple optimization model under uncertainty can simulate a model together; (2) systemic risk issues were considered; and (3) the proposed method can be applied to the HID in northwest China to solve the soil salinization control problem. This approach is applicable to arid and semiarid regions that face similar problems. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Management and Regulation of Agricultural Water Resources in the Context of Global Climate Change)

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