Abstract
Ongoing water-resource depletion is a common trend in southeastern Kazakhstan and in most of Central Asia, making the use of drainage water for freshwater preservation and groundwater recharge a key strategy for sustainable agriculture. Since the Ily River inflow began to decrease, groundwater levels in the Shengeldy study area site have fallen below the drainage pipes. As such, our main research hypothesis was that owing to drainage infiltration, the regional shallow aquifer can be used as an effective additional water source for moistening crop root systems during the irrigation period. The MODFLOW groundwater flow model was used to simulate and quantitatively assess the combined hydrogeological and irrigation conditions of artificial groundwater recharge both from the subsurface drainage and as an additional source for irrigation. The field study showed that the additional groundwater table elevation will reach approximately 1.5 m under the field drainage system and that the additional groundwater recharge influence zone will develop up to 300–350 m from the drains. The MODFLOW simulation together with full-scale experimental studies suggests that under certain conditions drainage water can be applied both as an additional source of irrigation and for aquifer sustainable maintenance.
Highlights
In areas where irrigation water is scarce, drainage water reuse can provide benefits by supplementing water resources in parallel applications, enabling drainage volume reduction
A field-test evaluation of the potential of irrigated agriculture expansion through the supplementation of saline drainage waters concluded that new crop and water management strategies and practices should be developed to enable the application of drainage water in agriculture [1]
Owing to the Ily River flow rate reduction and high evaporation rates from the reservoirs (Wu et al, 2019), groundwater levels in the southern Shengeldy irrigation area fell below the drainage pipes and part of the drainage flow began to percolate into the underlying sediments
Summary
In areas where irrigation water is scarce, drainage water reuse can provide benefits by supplementing water resources in parallel applications, enabling drainage volume reduction. A field-test evaluation of the potential of irrigated agriculture expansion through the supplementation of saline drainage waters concluded that new crop and water management strategies and practices should be developed to enable the application of drainage water in agriculture [1]. One such strategy was tested to reduce the water shortage problem in the Middle Euphrates provinces (Iraq) and it indicated that, together with drainage infiltration for reduction, adding brackish water to the summer irrigation enables salinitysensitive crop cultivation [2]. Floodwater harvesting and distribution system techniques for groundwater resource management optimization in an arid region of Iran efficiently involved groundwater balance modeling [7]
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