Estimating irrigation demand with geospatial and in-situ data: Application to the high plains aquifer, Kansas, USA

B. MardanDoost, A.E. Brookfield, J. Feddema, B. Sturm, J. Kastens, D. Peterson and C. Bishop

Agricultural Water Management, 2019, vol. 223, issue C, -

Abstract: Unsustainable groundwater mining threatens the economic stability of several regions around the world. Developing sustainable water-use policies and integrated water-management plans requires reliably predicting water demand under variable weather and land-use conditions. Here, a water-budget model capable of estimating spatial and temporal variations in daily irrigation demand under variable weather and land-use scenarios is modified to consider irrigation management and groundwater pumping limitations. This model uses a combination of geospatial and in-situ measured data, including land-use and land-cover maps, crop-specific evapotranspiration data, and weather data. A coupled sub-model limits pumping rates based on pump capacity and spatial and temporal variations in the saturated thickness of the aquifer. The ability of this water-budget model to accurately estimate irrigation demand is demonstrated using the High Plains aquifer region of Kansas, USA, an aquifer that has undergone, and continues to undergo, significant depletion due to decades of irrigation. The model was calibrated with reported and measured water use for more than 1200 fields, with ratios of simulated annual irrigation demand to actual reported water use of 1.10, 0.78, 0.75, 0.93, and 1.40 for corn, sorghum, soybean, winter wheat, and alfalfa, respectively. Further simulations at a variety of scales, from field to multi-county levels, demonstrate that the developed water-budget model is capable of simulating the spatial and temporal variability of irrigation demand.

Keywords: High plains aquifer; Land use-land cover; Saturated thickness; Soil-water balance; Water budget (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377418316792
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:223:y:2019:i:c:44

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2019.06.010

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().