ISHS Acta Horticulturae 664: IV International Symposium on Irrigation of Horticultural Crops
FAO ACTIVITIES TO DEVELOP AGRO-CLIMATIC DATASETS AND TOOLS FOR THE NEEDS OF IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT |
| Author: | M. Bernardi |
| Keywords: | Agro-meteorology, spatial interpolation, digital datasets, water resources, decision support system |
| Abstract:
The improvement of irrigated crop system management has become a priority for economic and environmental reasons. In many cases, irrigation control is mainly a question of management of water resources, equipment and manpower. It therefore depends on choices to define the water supply strategies for optimal crop production and economic returns under conditions of reduced water supply and to advise farmers to optimize timing and application rate of crop irrigation for optimal yields and income also under limited water supply. The choice of cropping plan stands on farm constraints: (i) crops to irrigate, production and margin objectives; (ii) irrigation programme, i.e. a set of decision-making rules concerning irrigation management. To define the best strategy, the irrigation programme is elaborated taking account of the agronomic parameters of each crop, the soils and climate characteristics and, particularly, climate variability. However, the accuracy of these strategies is often limited by the availability of climatic data at a specific temporal or spatial resolution and by the availability of adequate crop information for regional applications. These are just few examples of the problems to deal with in the planning and operational activities related to the irrigation management. To minimize the impact of such a problems, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has developed application tools to address the lack of agro-climatic data at worldwide level. FAO is a specialized UN Agency dealing with agriculture, forestry and fishery, particularly in developing countries. One of its technical services (Environment and Natural Resources Service, SDRN) has the responsibility to provide information on environment and natural resources as related to food and agriculture and it includes, among others, expertise in remote sensing and GIS. The Agro-meteorology Group is part of SDRN and it is responsible to provide global environmental digital datasets, to collect meteorological data in real-time, to develop methodologies, models and tools for data standardization, collection, spatialization and analysis. Data and tools are developed taking into account technical specifications of decision support systems for irrigation planning and management developed by other FAO services. | |
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