Water resources are getting more and more scarce. And the competition for water is increasing among different human activities. Irrigation is becoming indispensable for food production, not only in arid and semi-arid regions. Its use is also increasing in humid regions for exploring the full potentiality of crops and for reducing impacts of the climate variability and change. This is the case, for example, of large part of subtropical and tropical regions of South America, where the food production is increasing very fastly.
In most of cases, those humid regions require a supplementary irrigation, instead of the continuous systems that are used in dry regions (with exception for rice crops). In general, the main reasons are: oscillations on the rainfall regime and / or variations in plants sensibility throughout the crop cycle. This means that even a short water stress in the critical stages (maize, for example) may cause a high impact on crop yields.
In my opinion, the management of supplementary irrigation is more complex than in continuous systems. On the other hand, if well managed, the supplementary irrigation may allows to significant increases on the efficient use of water, investments, and other natural resources. However, it requires flexibility on decisions and practices, and therefore, a high level of knowledge and monitoring.
Are there new tendencies for improving the management and monitoring systems, in particular for applying on large cropping areas?
Feedbacks will be very appreciated.
I am quite agree with you. As precipitations are getting more erratic and sparse in humid regions (due to global warming and climate change), the need for supplementary irrigation increase rapidly. But in the view of farmers in these regions (who didn't use to apply irrigation in their fields) it may seem odd that they need irrigation for their crop growth and so should pay for irrigation systems and their related equipments. These projects may face some culturally-related problems at the beginning. We have such experience in the north of Iran.
Dear Fulvio,
Your statements are very interesting. Irrigation in humid regions is primarily based on economic analyses. Nowadays, farmers are focusing high levels of productivity, with stability of production. And limiting factors must be eliminated.
But, I'm driving my question for a prospective discussion on new technological tendencies or new strategies in terms of management and monitoring irrigated cropping systems.
Dr. Amir said something about new systems in the north of Iran.
I would like to know more about these aspects. Please.
Thanks in advance.
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