A Farm-Scale Water Balance Assessment of Various Rice Irrigation Strategies Using a Bucket-Model Approach in Spain
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Date
2025-10-07
Authors
Cufi, SilviaArbat, Gerard
Pinsach, Jaume
Cuadrado-Alarcon, Blanca
Facchi, Arianna
Villar, Josep M
Dechmi, Farida
de Cartagena, Francisco Ramirez
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
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MDPI
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artÃculo originalAbstract
Making effective decisions about scaling up on-farm irrigation practices to the district level requires a comprehensive assessment of irrigation management at the farm level. In this context, a bucket-type water mass balance model was developed, calibrated, and validated over five irrigation seasons on a 121-hectare rice farm located in the lower Ter River valley (north-east Spain), to assess the water use efficiency and the impact of different irrigation practices on water savings. The model was implemented considering the spatial variability of the soils within the farm. It showed a satisfactory performance in both the calibration (2020, 2021, 2022) and validation (2023, 2024) cropping seasons, with NSE values greater than 0.50, PBIAS lower than +/- 20%, and RSR lower than 0.70. After model validation, the simulation of alternative water management practices revealed that the 10-day fixed-turn irrigation reduced irrigation water use by 30% compared to the traditional water management, although it may negatively impact rice yield. Simulations of an early irrigation cut-off at the end of the season and dry seeding with delayed flooding accounted for 17% and 15% irrigation water savings, respectively. The implementation of the no-runoff practice only accounted for a 6% reduction in water use. The water-saving potential of the simulated strategies was mainly driven by shortening the flooded period of rice paddies, thus demonstrating that managing the ponding water level is critical to diminishing water use in rice irrigation.
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Bibliographic citation
CufÃ, S., Arbat, G., Pinsach, J., Cuadrado-Alarcón, B., Facchi, A., Villar, J. M., Dechmi, F., & Cartagena, F. R. de. (2025). A Farm-Scale Water Balance Assessment of Various Rice Irrigation Strategies Using a Bucket-Model Approach in Spain. Agriculture, 15(19), 2089. https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture15192089
AGROVOC subjects
Disponibilidad del aguaGestión del agua
Sistema de riego
Región mediterránea
Modelo de simulación
Arroz
Arroz irrigado
Sponsorship
Esta investigación se llevó a cabo en el marco de los proyectos MEDWATERICE y PROMEDRICE. Ambos proyectos forman parte del programa PRIMA, respaldado por la Unión Europea, y recibieron financiación de la Agencia Estatal de Investigación española en virtud de los acuerdos de subvención PCI2019-103738 y PCI2023-143435, respectivamente, como parte del programa PRIMA. Este trabajo también ha contado con el apoyo del Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades de España a través de una beca predoctoral FPU, en virtud del acuerdo de subvención FPU20/01123.