Land, Air, and Water Resources on Sustainable Agricultural Development in Egypt

Abstract

The experiments were carried out at Moshtohor, Kalubia governorate (latitude, 30° 21′N; longitude, 31° 14′E; and elevation, 14 m), during 2015/2016 growing seasons to test model application of wheat under Egyptian conditions. A computer application program has been developed as Consumptive Use Program plus (CUP plus) as it is an application that can estimate crop evapotranspiration (ETc) and evapotranspiration of applied water (ETaw). The program uses daily and monthly measured weather data to estimate daily soil water balances for surfaces that account for evapotranspiration losses and water contributions from rainfall, seepage, and irrigation. Soil water-holding characteristics, effective rooting depths, and irrigation frequency were measured with rainfall and ETc data to calculate a daily water balance and determine rainfall and ETaw, which is equal to the seasonal cumulative ETc minus the effective rainfall. The main objective of this paper research is testing a mode for determining reference evapotranspiration (ETo), crop coefficient (Kc) values, crop evapotranspiration (ETc), and evapotranspiration of applied water (ETaw), which provides an estimate of the net irrigation water diversion needed to produce a crop. The obtained results show that ETo arrives to the maximum in May by 188.19 mm/month, but ETaw arrives at the maximum in April by 110.71 mm/month. The application outputs and includes a wide range of tables and charts that are useful for irrigation planning and decision-making.