LIST WATER LECTURES Seminar Series 2018 #9

As part of the LIST Water Lectures series organised for the fall session 2018, the next event will take place on 9 October 2018 at LIST premises in Belvaux (LU).

Prof. Giulia Vico from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences of Uppsala (SW), Department of Crop Production Ecology, will be the invited speaker and will make an oral presentation on « Crop choice and water management for high and stable yields ».

Abstract

The projected population growth and changes in climate and dietary habits will further increase the pressure on agriculture to provide sufficient and stable yields. Irrigation is used to stabilize yields in the face of variable climatic conditions. This approach however comes at the cost of higher and increasingly variable water requirements for irrigation. A probabilistic description of the soil water balance and crop development is employed to quantify water requirements and yields and their inter-annual variability, as a function of rainfall patterns, soil and crop features. Optimal irrigation strategies are thus defined in terms of maximization of yield and minimization of required irrigation volumes and their inter-annual variability.

Next, this probabilistic model is used to explore the implications of crop choice on water resources. Specifically, we assess the consequences of shifting from annual to perennial crops for water management at the field- to farm-scale, under both rainfed and irrigated agriculture. Such a shift has been advocated to enhance ecosystem services, but we show that its net effect on crops water requirements is still highly uncertain.

Visit the main LIST WATER LECTURES SERIES page / 2018 edition > www.list.lu/en/events/LIST-WaterLecturesSeries

The LIST Water Lectures series were launched in January 2017 and covers various aspects of water resources research towards a sustainable river basin management. The series aggregate a group of outstanding experts and scientists in water resources research and related fields. They are funded by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) and organised by the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) in the framework of the Doctoral Training unit in hydrological sciences’ activities.