Shin-ichi Urano

Modeling of continental-scale crop water requirement and available water resources

The relationship between agricultural water demand and supply has been of interest to government decision makers and scientists because of its importance in water resources management. We developed a water cycle model for eastern Eurasia that can estimate water requirements for crop growth and evaluate the demand–supply relationships of agricultural water use on a continental scale. To produce an appropriate water cycle, the model was constructed based on small drainage basins. To validate the model performance with respect to simulated runoff, which is here considered as the available water resource, we compared our outputs with those of other models and with observed river discharges. The results show that this model is comparable to other models and that it is applicable for the evaluation of water cycles at continental scale. We defined two types of crop water deficits (CWDs) as indicators of agricultural water demand. These were formulated by considering the physical processes of crop water use; we did not include water consumption that is dependent on cultivation management practices, such as water losses in irrigation systems. We assessed the reliability of our indicators by comparison with indicators from other studies and with published statistics related to agricultural water use. These comparisons suggest that our indicators are consistent with independent data and can provide a reasonable representation of water requirements for crop growth.