Importance of transient-state models in assessing and predicting water, soil and crop dynamics under irrigated agriculture.
2016
Visconti, F.
For millennia, irrigation has been one of the main driving forces of civilization. Given that the world human population is estimated to reach 9 billion in the next 40 years, irrigation is going to be a key factor in food security. However, irrigation makes use of slowly renewable or just non-renewable natural resources, mainly freshwater, soil, and several mineral ores, which raises many concerns about its sustainability. To cope with these sustainability issues, irrigation management requires the use of tools rooted in reliable and readily usable scientific knowledge and technology. Since the 'steady-state hypothesis' presents some constraints on simulating the ever-changing events of irrigated agriculture (e.g. water and solute dynamics), transient-state models seem to be the best tools to use. Presently, there are several transient-state models which are able to simulate water and solute flows through soils - core phenomena in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. These models can simulate the dynamics of water, nutrients (mainly nitrogen, but also phosphorus and potassium) and salts to forecast crop growth, yield and harvest quality, or alternatively, the models can simulate the leaching and transformation of various chemicals such as salts, nutrients, xenobiotic organic compounds and heavy metals. Better decisions for the management of irrigation and fertilization can be made when using transient-state and hence, their importance is going to increase in the future. This review presents the main characteristics of some of the most recently cited models designed to simulate the dynamics of water, soil, various solutes and crops under irrigated agriculture.
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