Fully Distributed Water Balance Modelling in Large Agricultural Areas—The Pinios River Basin (Greece) Case Study

Vassilios Pisinaras (), Frank Herrmann, Andreas Panagopoulos, Evangelos Tziritis, Ian McNamara and Frank Wendland
Additional contact information
Vassilios Pisinaras: Soil and Water Resources Institute, Hellenic Agricultural Organization “DEMETER”, 57400 Thessaloniki, Greece
Frank Herrmann: Forschungszentrum Jülich, IBG-3, 52425 Jülich, Germany
Andreas Panagopoulos: Soil and Water Resources Institute, Hellenic Agricultural Organization “DEMETER”, 57400 Thessaloniki, Greece
Evangelos Tziritis: Soil and Water Resources Institute, Hellenic Agricultural Organization “DEMETER”, 57400 Thessaloniki, Greece
Ian McNamara: Forschungszentrum Jülich, IBG-3, 52425 Jülich, Germany
Frank Wendland: Forschungszentrum Jülich, IBG-3, 52425 Jülich, Germany

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 5, 1-29

Abstract: Robust assessments of variations in freshwater availability are essential for current and future water resource management in the Pinios River Basin (PRB), which is one of the most productive basins of Greece in terms of agriculture. To support sustainable water resources management in the PRB, we set up and calibrated the mGROWA hydrological model at a high spatial (100 m) and temporal (daily) resolution for the period 1971–2000, with particular attention given to deriving crop-specific irrigation requirements. We developed and implemented a comprehensive methodological framework to overcome data scarcity constraints in the PRB, thus enabling the derivation of high-resolution spatially continuous estimates of many input variables required for the mGROWA model. We generated estimates of spatiotemporal variations in the water balance components actual evapotranspiration, irrigation requirements, total runoff, and groundwater recharge for the PRB. In addition, through the calculation of indices, such as the potential irrigation to groundwater recharge ratio (PIQR), we demonstrate a way to identify potential unsustainable water use in irrigated agriculture. The established mGROWA model can be used both as a hydrological reference model providing continuous decision support for water resources management, focusing on irrigation water use, and a basis for climate impact studies for the PRB.

Keywords: hydrologic modelling; mGROWA model; irrigation; water resources management; Mediterranean (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/5/4343/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/5/4343/ (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:15:y:2023:i:5:p:4343-:d:1083831

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 ().