IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/agiwat/v97y2010i11p1731-1741.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Development and credibility assessment of a metamodel relating water table depth to agricultural production

Author

Listed:
  • Heuvelmans, Griet

Abstract

Phreatic groundwater pumping is affecting water availability for crops in areas with a shallow water table. This can reduce crop growth and so affect farm income. There is a need for a generic and transparent method to assess the agricultural damage caused by water table drawdown. This paper proposes such a method that consists of 'damage tables' relating agricultural production losses to the groundwater regime for different soil/crop combinations found in Northern Belgium. The damage tables are constructed based on numerous simulations with the agrohydrological model SWAP, in which the bottom boundary conditions are gradually changed to reflect different groundwater regimes. The credibility of the resulting metamodel is assessed in three ways: using (1) field data, (2) an existing local expert system for land suitability assessment and (3) literature applying to a wider region. Field data of actual transpiration for two grasslands do not systematically deviate from the model predictions. This provides some credibility to the claim that the model captures the processes determining evapotranspiration and agricultural production. The local expert system allows us to evaluate the range of groundwater regimes where optimal growth is expected for maize and grassland across different soil types. Diverging predictions of the optimal groundwater regime between the metamodel and the local expert system can be explained in terms of differences in assumptions underlying both models. One notable limitation of the damage tables is that only direct physiological stress is reckoned while indirect effects of wet conditions (decreased accessibility of the terrain, soil structural damage) may also limit growth on soils with a water table near the surface. Further comparison with literature data focused on two issues: the contribution of groundwater to evapotranspiration and the extinction depth, i.e., the depth at which groundwater no longer contributes to evapotranspiration. This comparison revealed that damage tables developed for our area of interest are only valid under similar climatic conditions for the following two reasons: they assume a relatively small groundwater contribution to evapotranspiration, which is typical for humid climates, and they take into account temporal variations in plant characteristics such as root depth, which is also climate dependent.

Suggested Citation

  • Heuvelmans, Griet, 2010. "Development and credibility assessment of a metamodel relating water table depth to agricultural production," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 97(11), pages 1731-1741, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:97:y:2010:i:11:p:1731-1741
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378-3774(10)00201-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. Boling, A.A. & Bouman, B. A.M. & Tuong, T.P. & Murty, M.V.R. & Jatmiko, S.Y., 2007. "Modelling the effect of groundwater depth on yield-increasing interventions in rainfed lowland rice in Central Java, Indonesia," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 92(1-3), pages 115-139, January.
    2. Ragab, R. A. & Amer, Fathi, 1986. "Estimating water table contribution to the water supply of maize," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 11(3-4), pages 221-230, September.
    3. de Vos, J.A. & van Bakel, P.J.T. & Hoving, I.E. & Conijn, J.G., 2006. "Waterpas-model: A predictive tool for water management, agriculture, and environment," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(1-2), pages 187-195, November.
    4. Mejia, M. N. & Madramootoo, C. A. & Broughton, R. S., 2000. "Influence of water table management on corn and soybean yields," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 73-89, November.
    5. Kahlown, M.A. & Ashraf, M. & Zia-ul-Haq, 2005. "Effect of shallow groundwater table on crop water requirements and crop yields," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 24-35, July.
    6. Liu, Y. & Pereira, L.S. & Fernando, R.M., 2006. "Fluxes through the bottom boundary of the root zone in silty soils: Parametric approaches to estimate groundwater contribution and percolation," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 84(1-2), pages 27-40, July.
    7. Sepaskhah, A. R. & Kanooni, A. & Ghasemi, M. M., 2003. "Estimating water table contributions to corn and sorghum water use," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 67-79, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Zhao, Tianxing & Zhu, Yan & Ye, Ming & Yang, Jinzhong & Jia, Biao & Mao, Wei & Wu, Jingwei, 2022. "A new approach for estimating spatial-temporal phreatic evapotranspiration at a regional scale using NDVI and water table depth measurements," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    2. Gao, Xiaoyu & Bai, Yining & Huo, Zailin & Xu, Xu & Huang, Guanhua & Xia, Yuhong & Steenhuis, Tammo S., 2017. "Deficit irrigation enhances contribution of shallow groundwater to crop water consumption in arid area," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 116-125.
    3. Ghamarnia, Houshang & Khodaei, Erfan, 2016. "Evidence on shallow groundwater use by edible green vegetables such as Solanum pseudoca psicum, Ocimum basilicum and Lepidium sativum in a semi-arid climate condition," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 198-210.
    4. Talebnejad, R. & Sepaskhah, A.R., 2015. "Effect of different saline groundwater depths and irrigation water salinities on yield and water use of quinoa in lysimeter," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 177-188.
    5. Liu, Meihan & Paredes, Paula & Shi, Haibin & Ramos, Tiago B. & Dou, Xu & Dai, Liping & Pereira, Luis S., 2022. "Impacts of a shallow saline water table on maize evapotranspiration and groundwater contribution using static water table lysimeters and the dual Kc water balance model SIMDualKc," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 273(C).
    6. Wu, Yao & Liu, Tingxi & Paredes, Paula & Duan, Limin & Pereira, Luis S., 2015. "Water use by a groundwater dependent maize in a semi-arid region of Inner Mongolia: Evapotranspiration partitioning and capillary rise," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 222-232.
    7. Talebnejad, R. & Sepaskhah, A.R., 2015. "Effect of deficit irrigation and different saline groundwater depths on yield and water productivity of quinoa," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 225-238.
    8. Gou, Qiqi & Zhu, Yonghua & Horton, Robert & Lü, Haishen & Wang, Zhenlong & Su, Jianbin & Cui, Chenyun & Zhang, Haoqiang & Wang, Xiaoyi & Zheng, Jingyao & Yuan, Fei, 2020. "Effect of climate change on the contribution of groundwater to the root zone of winter wheat in the Huaibei Plain of China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    9. Xu, Baoli & Shao, Dongguo & Tan, Xuezhi & Yang, Xia & Gu, Wenquan & Li, Haoxin, 2017. "Evaluation of soil water percolation under different irrigation practices, antecedent moisture and groundwater depths in paddy fields," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 149-158.
    10. Rong, Yao & Dai, Xiaoqin & Wang, Weishu & Wu, Peijin & Huo, Zailin, 2023. "Dependence of evapotranspiration validity on shallow groundwater in arid area-a three years field observation experiment," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 286(C).
    11. Gao, Xiaoyu & Huo, Zailin & Xu, Xu & Qu, Zhongyi & Huang, Guanhua & Tang, Pengcheng & Bai, Yining, 2018. "Shallow groundwater plays an important role in enhancing irrigation water productivity in an arid area: The perspective from a regional agricultural hydrology simulation," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 43-58.
    12. Xu, Xu & Huang, Guanhua & Sun, Chen & Pereira, Luis S. & Ramos, Tiago B. & Huang, Quanzhong & Hao, Yuanyuan, 2013. "Assessing the effects of water table depth on water use, soil salinity and wheat yield: Searching for a target depth for irrigated areas in the upper Yellow River basin," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 46-60.
    13. Wu, Zhangsheng & Li, Yue & Wang, Rong & Xu, Xu & Ren, Dongyang & Huang, Quanzhong & Xiong, Yunwu & Huang, Guanhua, 2023. "Evaluation of irrigation water saving and salinity control practices of maize and sunflower in the upper Yellow River basin with an agro-hydrological model based method," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).
    14. Muhammad Amin & Mobushir Riaz Khan & Sher Shah Hassan & Muhammad Imran & Muhammad Hanif & Irfan Ahmad Baig, 2023. "Determining satellite-based evapotranspiration product and identifying relationship with other observed data in Punjab, Pakistan," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 23-39, January.
    15. Darouich, Hanaa & Karfoul, Razan & Ramos, Tiago B. & Moustafa, Ali & Shaheen, Baraa & Pereira, Luis S., 2021. "Crop water requirements and crop coefficients for jute mallow (Corchorus olitorius L.) using the SIMDualKc model and assessing irrigation strategies for the Syrian Akkar region," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    16. Barnard, J.H. & van Rensburg, L.D. & Bennie, A.T.P. & du Preez, C.C., 2013. "Simulating water uptake of irrigated field crops from non-saline water table soils: Validation and application of the model SWAMP," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 19-32.
    17. Giorgio Baiamonte & Mario Minacapilli & Giuseppina Crescimanno, 2020. "Effects of Biochar on Irrigation Management and Water Use Efficiency for Three Different Crops in a Desert Sandy Soil," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-19, September.
    18. E. Stenitzer & H. Diestel & Th. Zenker & R. Schwartengräber, 2007. "Assessment of Capillary Rise from Shallow Groundwater by the Simulation Model SIMWASER Using Either Estimated Pedotransfer Functions or Measured Hydraulic Parameters," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 21(9), pages 1567-1584, September.
    19. Rosa, R.D. & Ramos, T.B. & Pereira, L.S., 2016. "The dual Kc approach to assess maize and sweet sorghum transpiration and soil evaporation under saline conditions: Application of the SIMDualKc model," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 77-94.
    20. Zhang, He & Li, Duansheng & Zhou, Zhiguo & Zahoor, Rizwan & Chen, Binglin & Meng, Yali, 2017. "Soil water and salt affect cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) photosynthesis, yield and fiber quality in coastal saline soil," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 112-121.

    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:97:y:2010:i:11:p:1731-1741. 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.