Abstract
Malaysia receives a lot of water from its two main monsoon periods. Generally, there is a lot of precipitation throughout the year, with drought periods lasting less than three months. To date, irrigation has been treated homogenously, even though soil properties can vary spatially over a field, requiring site-specific applications. The aim of this study was to establish an irrigation management zone (IMZ) covering 23.4 ha, which was previously determined under the same soil series. Soil sampling was done according to a grid system over an area of 100 m × 100 m. Three soil depth ranges were examined for every sampling point, namely 0–30, 30–60, and 60–90 cm from the soil surface. Samples were taken to a laboratory for physical analysis and determination of the available water-holding capacity (AWHC). Delineation of AWHC values was achieved using GIS software and the Kriging method. Estimated irrigation depth (EID) data for the plantation were collected for the years 2016 and 2017. Afterward, EID and total net irrigation (TNI) data were simulated in the FAO Cropwat model and compared. The results showed that clay, sand, and organic matter (OM) distributions varied with soil depth; however, no strong correlation was found between these variable with AWHC. The IMZ was classified into three areas named zones A, B, and C, ranging from 79 to 167 mm. The crop water requirement (CWR) was 667 mm in 2016 but only 260 mm in 2017. Based on the AWHC values, the EID for 2016 was found to be below the TNI requirement range of about 106 to 110 mm. In contrast, the EID range was approximately 34 to 62 mm and above TNI requirements for 2017. This study indicates that water inputs for irrigation can be optimized with knowledge of the water-holding capacity of a specific soil. Subsequently, this can be related to crop yield and the impact on sustainable agriculture.
Highlights
IntroductionWater is the most important resource on earth; over 96.5% of the water on earth is saline, while the remainder is freshwater
The number of rainy days can indicate the total solar radiation and potential crop evapotranspiration (ETc); a red dotted line was used at 120 mm as a baseline, which represented the minimum value for ETc suggested by IRHO [25]
In Mac, the total water availability was only 21.9 mm month−1, which deviated by 82% from the baseline
Summary
Water is the most important resource on earth; over 96.5% of the water on earth is saline, while the remainder is freshwater. A total of 68.6% of freshwater is locked up in the form of ice and glaciers, while another 30.1% is stored as ground water [1]. The human population keeps is continually increasing, reaching 7.9 billion people in. 2020 [2] and being predicted to increase by 22 to 34% by 2050 [3]; water security, i.e., having access to an adequate quantity and acceptable quality of water, is already at risk and will become worse over the few decades [4]. Water resources are undoubtedly declining at an alarming rate all around the world [5]. Valipour et al [6] showed that the global mean surface temperature increased by 0.66 ◦ C for the periods of 1961–1990 to
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