An Informatics tool to calculate the optimum level of water to be applied in deficit irrigation of agricultural crops
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Abstract
The agriculture sector is the largest user of water in the world. Water is a scarce and polluted natural resource, and a general perception that agricultural water use is often wasteful is widespread. For these reasons, there is an urgent need to use water resources efficiently. Deficit irrigation, the application of irrigation below the full crop evapotranspiration, is potentially able to improve efficiency and maximize profits through a reduction in capital and operating costs. The application of deficit irrigation requires the determination of some optimal irrigation levels which provide maximum profit and/or food production with a limited availability of resources (e.g., land or water). The paper discusses the application of MathCad, a versatile mathematical program commonly used in the solution of engineering problems, to the determination of these optimal irrigation levels. The results showed that MathCad is a tool precise and rapid to solve the problems of calculating these levels.
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