An Online Tool for Estimating Evapotranspiration and Irrigation Requirements of Crops in South Carolina

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increased interest in South Carolina regarding the amount of water used by different consumers, especially agricultural producers. This interest has sparked conversations among different stakeholders, including the media, policy makers, producers, scientists, and the general public, regarding the current state and future of water resources in the state. Central to these discussions, from the agricultural sector perspective, is the question of how much water producers really need to grow crops. The objective of this study was, therefore, to develop an online tool to use local South Carolina historic weather data to estimate daily and seasonal crop evapotranspiration and irrigation requirements for different crops. The overall goal was for the new tool to assist farmers and other stakeholders to better plan irrigation water allocations and management. Therefore, an interactive online tool called ETcCalc was created to address this objective. ETcCalc, which is freely available online (http://sccropwater.com), was developed using historic weather data; therefore, it is suitable as an irrigation planning tool rather than a real-time irrigation scheduling tool.