Farmers’ Awareness in the Context of Climate Change: An Underutilized Way for Ensuring Sustainable Farmland Adaptation and Surface Water Quality

Ahmed Awad, Wan Luo, Nadhir Al-Ansari, Ahmed Elbeltagi, Mustafa El-Rawy, Hesham N. Farres and Mohamed EL-Sayed Gabr
Additional contact information
Ahmed Awad: College of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China
Wan Luo: College of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China
Nadhir Al-Ansari: Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Lulea University of Technology, 97187 Lulea, Sweden
Ahmed Elbeltagi: Agricultural Engineering Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Mansoura University, Mansoura 35516, Egypt
Mustafa El-Rawy: Civil Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Minia University, Minia 61111, Egypt
Hesham N. Farres: Irrigation and Hydraulic Department, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo 11566, Egypt
Mohamed EL-Sayed Gabr: Civil Engineering Department, High Institute for Engineering and Technology, New Damietta 34517, Egypt

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 21, 1-16

Abstract: Simulations using the Crop Water and Irrigation Requirements model (CROPWAT), show that the projected climatic changes over the period from 2026 to 2050 in the Yanyun irrigation district, Yangzhou, China, will cause the paddy lands there to lose about 12.4% to 37.4%, and 1.6% to 45.6%, of their future seasonal rainwater in runoff under the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP45 and RCP85), respectively. This may increase future irrigation requirements (IRs), alongside threatening the quality of adjacent water bodies. The CROPWAT simulations were re-run after increasing the Surface Storage Capacity (SSC) of the land by 50% and 100% of its baseline value. The results state that future rainwater runoff will be reduced by up to 76% and 100%, and 53% and 100% when the SSC is increased by 50% and 100%, under RCP45 and RCP85, respectively. This mitigates the future increase in IRs (e.g., under RCP45, up to about 11% and 16% of future IRs will be saved when increasing the SSC by 50% and 100%, respectively), thus saving the adjacent water bodies from the contaminated runoff from these lands. Adjusting the SSC of farmlands is an easy physical approach that can be practiced by farmers, and therefore educating them on how to follow up the rainfall forecast and then adjust the level of their farmlands’ boundaries according to these forecasts may help in the self-adaptation of vast areas of farmlands to climate change. These findings will help water users conserve agricultural water resources (by mitigating the future increase in IRs) alongside ensuring better quality for adjacent water bodies (by decreasing future runoff from these farmlands). Increasing farmers’ awareness, an underutilized approach, is a potential tool for ensuring improved agricultural circumstances amid projected climate changes and preserving the available water resources.

Keywords: crop water requirements; irrigated agriculture; paddy fields; soil water balance; Surface Storage Capacity; water conservation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/21/11802/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/21/11802/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:21:p:11802-:d:664728

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().