IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/agiwat/v257y2021ics0378377421003103.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Design drainage rates to optimize crop production for subsurface-drained fields

Author

Listed:
  • Ghane, Ehsan
  • Askar, Manal H.
  • Skaggs, R. Wayne

Abstract

Agricultural subsurface drainage is critical for crop production in temperate humid regions. With the heightened concern of its water-quality implications, we need a method to design drainage systems for both crop production and environmental protection. The objective of this research was to develop an empirical equation that estimates the design drainage rate (DDR) for local soil and weather conditions. This DDR can then be used in the Hooghoudt equation to estimate the optimum drain spacing that maximizes profit. We conducted DRAINMOD simulations for each combination of four factors: three drain depths, three effective radii, seven locations, and five soils. For each combination of factors, simulations were repeated for a range of drain spacing from 5 to 100 m using 30 years (1990–2019) of weather data planted with continuous corn (Zea mays L.). Simulations provided a 30-year average relative corn yield and drainage discharge for each combination of factors. The drain spacings that maximized annual economic return on investment were identified as optimum spacings and used to calculate the DDR for each combination of factors. Results were then used in a multiple linear regression to develop two empirical equations for northeast and southeast USA with DDR as the dependent variable. The independent variables were the long-term average growing-season precipitation, drain depth, equivalent saturated hydraulic conductivity, and depth to restrictive layer. The environmental value of the empirical equations is that they help avoid too narrow of a drain spacing, thereby preventing more drainage than is needed. In conclusion, application of these empirical equations is a means for estimating the site-specific optimum drain spacing that maximizes economic return on investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Ghane, Ehsan & Askar, Manal H. & Skaggs, R. Wayne, 2021. "Design drainage rates to optimize crop production for subsurface-drained fields," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 257(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:257:y:2021:i:c:s0378377421003103
    DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2021.107045
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377421003103
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.agwat.2021.107045?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Luo, W. & Sands, G.R. & Youssef, M. & Strock, J.S. & Song, I. & Canelon, D., 2010. "Modeling the impact of alternative drainage practices in the northern Corn-belt with DRAINMOD-NII," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 97(3), pages 389-398, March.
    2. van der Molen, W. H. & Wesseling, J., 1991. "A solution in closed form and a series solution to replace the tables for the thickness of the equivalent layer in Hooghoudt's drain spacing formula," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 1-16, January.
    3. Malakshahi, Amir- Ashkan & Darzi- Naftchali, Abdullah & Mohseni, Behrooz, 2020. "Analyzing water table depth fluctuation response to evapotranspiration involving DRAINMOD model," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    4. Stuyt, L.C. P.M. & Dierickx, W., 2006. "Design and performance of materials for subsurface drainage systems in agriculture," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(1-2), pages 50-59, November.
    5. Youssef, Mohamed A. & Abdelbaki, Ahmed M. & Negm, Lamyaa M. & Skaggs, R.Wayne & Thorp, Kelly R. & Jaynes, Dan B., 2018. "DRAINMOD-simulated performance of controlled drainage across the U.S. Midwest," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 54-66.
    6. Mourtzinis, Spyridon & Andrade, José F. & Grassini, Patricio & Edreira, Juan I. Rattalino & Kandel, Hans & Naeve, Seth & Nelson, Kelly A. & Helmers, Matthew & Conley, Shawn P., 2021. "Assessing benefits of artificial drainage on soybean yield in the North Central US region," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).
    7. Skaggs, R. Wayne & Youssef, M.A. & Chescheir, G.M., 2006. "Drainage design coefficients for eastern United States," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(1-2), pages 40-49, November.
    8. Wang, X. & Mosley, C.T. & Frankenberger, J.R. & Kladivko, E.J., 2006. "Subsurface drain flow and crop yield predictions for different drain spacings using DRAINMOD," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 113-136, January.
    9. Michael J. Castellano & Sotirios V. Archontoulis & Matthew J. Helmers & Hanna J. Poffenbarger & Johan Six, 2019. "Sustainable intensification of agricultural drainage," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 2(10), pages 914-921, October.
    10. Gunn, Kpoti M. & Baule, William J. & Frankenberger, Jane R. & Gamble, Debra L. & Allred, Barry J. & Andresen, Jeff A. & Brown, Larry C., 2018. "Modeled climate change impacts on subirrigated maize relative yield in northwest Ohio," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 56-66.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ghane, Ehsan & Dialameh, Babak & AbdalAal, Yousef & Ghane, Mohammad, 2022. "Knitted-sock geotextile envelopes increase drain inflow in subsurface drainage systems," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 274(C).
    2. Guo, Chenyao & Yao, Chenzhi & Wu, Jingwei & Qin, Shuai & Yang, Haoyu & Li, Hang & Mao, Jun, 2024. "Field and numerical experiments of subsurface drainage systems in saline and low-permeability interlayered fields in arid regions," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 300(C).
    3. Ghane, Ehsan & Askar, Manal H., 2021. "Predicting the effect of drain depth on profitability and hydrology of subsurface drainage systems across the eastern USA," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    4. Feng Tian & Haibin Shi & Qingfeng Miao & Ruiping Li & Jie Duan & Xu Dou & Weiying Feng, 2023. "Soil Water and Salt Transport in Severe Saline–Alkali Soil after Ditching under Subsurface Pipe Drainage Conditions," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-20, November.
    5. Barbara Kęsicka & Rafał Stasik & Michał Kozłowski & Adam Choryński, 2023. "Is Controlled Drainage of Agricultural Land a Common Used Practice?—A Bibliographic Analysis," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-17, September.
    6. Shokrana, Md Sami Bin & Ghane, Ehsan & Abdalaal, Yousef & Nejadhashemi, A. Pouyan, 2023. "Predicting the effect of weir management on the discharge of a controlled drainage system in a changing climate," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 289(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ghane, Ehsan & Askar, Manal H., 2021. "Predicting the effect of drain depth on profitability and hydrology of subsurface drainage systems across the eastern USA," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    2. Youssef, Mohamed A. & Strock, Jeffrey & Bagheri, Ehsan & Reinhart, Benjamin D. & Abendroth, Lori J. & Chighladze, Giorgi & Ghane, Ehsan & Shedekar, Vinayak & Fausey (Ret.), Norman R. & Frankenberger, , 2023. "Impact of controlled drainage on corn yield under varying precipitation patterns: A synthesis of studies across the U.S. Midwest and Southeast," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 275(C).
    3. Askar, Manal H & Youssef, Mohamed A & Chescheir, George M & Negm, Lamyaa M & King, Kevin W & Hesterberg, Dean L & Amoozegar, Aziz & Skaggs, R. Wayne, 2020. "DRAINMOD Simulation of macropore flow at subsurface drained agricultural fields: Model modification and field testing," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 242(C).
    4. Negm, L.M. & Youssef, M.A. & Skaggs, R.W. & Chescheir, G.M. & Jones, J., 2014. "DRAINMOD–DSSAT model for simulating hydrology, soil carbon and nitrogen dynamics, and crop growth for drained crop land," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 30-45.
    5. Negm, L.M. & Youssef, M.A. & Chescheir, G.M. & Skaggs, R.W., 2016. "DRAINMOD-based tools for quantifying reductions in annual drainage flow and nitrate losses resulting from drainage water management on croplands in eastern North Carolina," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 86-100.
    6. Salazar, Osvaldo & Wesström, Ingrid & Joel, Abraham & Youssef, Mohamed A., 2013. "Application of an integrated framework for estimating nitrate loads from a coastal watershed in south-east Sweden," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 56-68.
    7. Dou, Xu & Shi, Haibin & Li, Ruiping & Miao, Qingfeng & Yan, Jianwen & Tian, Feng & Wang, Bo, 2022. "Simulation and evaluation of soil water and salt transport under controlled subsurface drainage using HYDRUS-2D model," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 273(C).
    8. Yasir Abduljaleel & Ahmed Awad & Nadhir Al-Ansari & Ali Salem & Abdelazim Negm & Mohamed Elsayed Gabr, 2023. "Assessment of Subsurface Drainage Strategies Using DRAINMOD Model for Sustainable Agriculture: A Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-19, January.
    9. Ghane, Ehsan & Dialameh, Babak & AbdalAal, Yousef & Ghane, Mohammad, 2022. "Knitted-sock geotextile envelopes increase drain inflow in subsurface drainage systems," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 274(C).
    10. Youssef, Mohamed A. & Liu, Yu & Chescheir, George M. & Skaggs, R. Wayne & Negm, Lamyaa M., 2021. "DRAINMOD modeling framework for simulating controlled drainage effect on lateral seepage from artificially drained fields," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 254(C).
    11. Singh, Shailendra & Bhattarai, Rabin & Negm, Lamyaa M. & Youssef, Mohamed A. & Pittelkow, Cameron M., 2020. "Evaluation of nitrogen loss reduction strategies using DRAINMOD-DSSAT in east-central Illinois," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    12. Xu Dou & Haibin Shi & Ruiping Li & Qingfeng Miao & Feng Tian & Dandan Yu & Liying Zhou & Bo Wang, 2021. "Effects of Controlled Drainage on the Content Change and Migration of Moisture, Nutrients, and Salts in Soil and the Yield of Oilseed Sunflower in the Hetao Irrigation District," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-19, September.
    13. Moriasi, Daniel N. & Gowda, Prasanna H. & Arnold, Jeffrey G. & Mulla, David J. & Ale, Srinivasulu & Steiner, Jean L., 2013. "Modeling the impact of nitrogen fertilizer application and tile drain configuration on nitrate leaching using SWAT," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 36-43.
    14. Youssef, Mohamed A. & Abdelbaki, Ahmed M. & Negm, Lamyaa M. & Skaggs, R.Wayne & Thorp, Kelly R. & Jaynes, Dan B., 2018. "DRAINMOD-simulated performance of controlled drainage across the U.S. Midwest," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 54-66.
    15. Rong Tang & Xiugui Wang & Xudong Han & Yihui Yan & Shuang Huang & Jiesheng Huang & Tao Shen & Youzhen Wang & Jia Liu, 2022. "Effects of Combined Main Ditch and Field Ditch Control Measures on Crop Yield and Drainage Discharge in the Northern Huaihe River Plain, Anhui Province, China," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-25, August.
    16. King, K.W. & Hanrahan, B.R. & Stinner, J. & Shedekar, V.S., 2022. "Field scale discharge and water quality response, to drainage water management," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    17. Amir Sedaghatdoost & Hamed Ebrahimian & Abdolmajid Liaghat, 2019. "An Inverse Modeling Approach to Calibrate Parameters for a Drainage Model with Two Optimization Algorithms on Homogeneous/Heterogeneous Soil," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 33(4), pages 1383-1395, March.
    18. Raats, Peter A.C. & Feddes, Reinder A., 2006. "Contributions by Jans Wesseling, Jan van Schilfgaarde, and Herman Bouwer to effective and responsible water management in agriculture," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(1-2), pages 9-29, November.
    19. Eric C. Edwards & Walter N. Thurman, 2022. "The Economics of Climatic Adaptation: Agricultural Drainage in the United States," NBER Chapters, in: American Agriculture, Water Resources, and Climate Change, pages 29-51, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Turunen, M. & Warsta, L. & Paasonen-Kivekäs, M. & Nurminen, J. & Myllys, M. & Alakukku, L. & Äijö, H. & Puustinen, M. & Koivusalo, H., 2013. "Modeling water balance and effects of different subsurface drainage methods on water outflow components in a clayey agricultural field in boreal conditions," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 135-148.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:257:y:2021:i:c:s0378377421003103. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.