Abstract
An irrigation performance analysis has been carried out in a horticultural greenhouse area located in the “Campo de Nijar” (Southern Spain) in order to assess its irrigation productivity. Irrigation water productivity indicators were calculated for a wide sample of crops over the course of two different study periods. These productivity indices were similar in average to those reported in other nearby greenhouse irrigation districts although their variability was very high. The overall productivity ratio (CYR) was 73.9 %. The low values for CYR were expected as irrigation water in this area has high salinity levels and low irrigation leaching fractions were applied. The influence of type of crop, greenhouse technology and agricultural season in the CYR values was analyzed. None of these factors had a statistically significant influence. A multivariate regression analysis was performed to model the crop yield as a function of several quantitative variables. The results showed that the most significant variable was the relative irrigation supply (RIS). Other variables that had an influence of the productivity were the length of the growing cycle in the case of tomato and the number of greenhouses per farm in the case of watermelon. Results of this work are useful as they highlight the weaknesses of the system and suggest possible measures in order to improve its productivity and sustainability.
Highlights
Agriculture is the largest water consumer in the world
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the irrigation water productivity in a greenhouse irrigation district in the southeast of Spain with increasing problems regarding the irrigation water availability and quality (The BCampo de Níjar^ area)
The results showed a good agreement of the crop yield data sample to a Weibull distribution function for the three crops analyzed with 90 % or higher confidence. (P-values greater than 0.10), The Weibull cumulative distribution function is given in Eq 2 and it depends on two parameters: α, the shape parameter of the distribution, and β called the scale parameter
Summary
More than two thirds of total water use is devoted to the irrigation of agricultural lands. The land area of greenhouses in the world exceeds 700,000 ha, mainly concentrated in Asia, in the Mediterranean Basin and in central and northern Europe. Sustainability, in many productive irrigated areas, is threatened by the limited availability of water resources. This is the case of many irrigation areas that use groundwater resources (Clemens 2006; Ahmad et al 2014), and more of greenhouse irrigation areas in the Mediterranean Basin. Many factors are involved in the efficient use of water, such as crop type, irrigation method, soil or substrate type, weather conditions, agricultural prices and markets, and farmers’ management decisions, among others
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