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Analysis of Irrigation Systems Using Sustainability‐Related Criteria
Author(s) -
Manoliadis Odysseus G.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of environmental quality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.888
H-Index - 171
eISSN - 1537-2537
pISSN - 0047-2425
DOI - 10.2134/jeq2001.3041150x
Subject(s) - irrigation , sustainability , environmental science , irrigation management , water scarcity , water conservation , deficit irrigation , agriculture , water resource management , production (economics) , agricultural engineering , water use , water resources , farm water , scarcity , water content , geography , economics , engineering , agronomy , macroeconomics , archaeology , microeconomics , ecology , geotechnical engineering , biology
Sustainable agricultural development as a desired goal in irrigation management is a result of recent public awareness of the scarcity of water for food production. In order to incorporate sustainability‐related criteria in the analysis of irrigation systems, the present study aims at introducing environmental indices that represent irrigation water conservation and satisfactory production and income for farmers under stress conditions. An experiment was conducted in Chania, Greece, during the irrigation periods of 1989 and 1990. The irrigation water delivered to 40 experimental plots and the relevant soil moisture content at the root zone were recorded. The data, collected in real time, were used for the calculation of the corresponding environmental indices. The variation of indices in time and space was high, and demonstrated that up to 13% of water was delivered to crops, 82% was yield loss, and 84% was economic return. The study indicated that environmental indices could be easily computed by means of routinely collected data, and could also be incorporated into decision‐making approaches, such as compromise programming, in order to develop policies for irrigation water allocation.