Adaptive Crop Management under Climate Uncertainty: Changing the Game for Sustainable Water Use

Abstract

Water supplies are projected to become increasingly scarce, driving farmers, energy producers, and urban dwellers towards an urgent and emerging need to improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of water use. Given that agricultural water use is the largest water consumer throughout the U.S. Southwest, this study sought to answer two specific research questions: (1) How does water consumption vary by crop type on a metropolitan spatial scale? (2) What is the impact of drought on agricultural water consumption? To answer the above research questions, 92 Landsat images were acquired to generate fine-resolution daily evapotranspiration (ET) maps at 30 m spatial resolution for both dry and wet years (a total of 1095 ET maps), and major crop types were identified for the Phoenix Active Management Area. The study area has a subtropical desert climate and relies almost completely on irrigation for farming. Results suggest that there are some factors that farmers and water managers can control. During dry years, crops of all types use more water. Practices that can offset this higher water use include double or multiple cropping practice, drought tolerant crop selection, and optimizing the total farmed area. Double and multiple cropping practices result in water savings because soil moisture is retained from one planting to another. Further water savings occur when drought tolerant crop types are selected, especially in dry years. Finally, disproportionately large area coverage of high water consuming crops can be balanced and/or reduced or replaced with more water efficient crops. This study provides strong evidence that water savings can be achieved through policies that create incentives for adopting smart cropping strategies, thus providing important guidelines for sustainable agriculture management and climate adaptation to improve future food security.

Use of Bioinoculants Affects Variation in Snap Bean Yield Grown under Deficit Irrigation

“…Abiotic stresses are hostile to plant growth and development. In particular, water deficiency is a severe constraint that affects growth and limits agricultural productivity on a global scale, a reason why several authors focused their attention on the optimization of strategies to ameliorate water deficit [43][44][45][46].…”

An Innovative Scheme to Confront the Trade‐Off Between Water Conservation and Heat Alleviation With Environmental Justice for Urban Sustainability: The Case of Phoenix, Arizona

“…We use total ETa as a proxy for OWU because it often approximates consumptive water use, which refers to all the water consumed by plants or humans. The total ETa in summer has been demonstrated to be used to estimate the OWU at each pixel location (Kaplan et al., 2014; Myint et al., 2021; Singh et al., 2013). Gober et al.…”

“…We use total ETa as a proxy for OWU because it often approximates consumptive water use, which refers to all the water consumed by plants or humans. The total ETa in summer has been demonstrated to be used to estimate the OWU at each pixel location (Kaplan et al, 2014;Myint et al, 2021;Singh et al, 2013). Gober et al (2009Gober et al ( , 2012 has explored the correlation between observed water use and ET in Phoenix and presented a statistically significant relationship (R 2 = 0.89) for the 10 tracts (Gober et al, 2009(Gober et al, , 2012.…”

Advanced Biotechnological Interventions in Mitigating Drought Stress in Plants

“…Drought is the most significant environmental stress in agriculture globally, and enhancing yield in water-limited environments is a primary goal of plant breeding [ 19 ]. Strategies such as developing and deploying drought-tolerant maize varieties are crucial in mitigating the detrimental effects of drought on agricultural productivity and livelihoods [ 20 ].…”