Crop Water Requirements and

Irrigation Scheduling
Debashis Chakraborty
National Fellow, ICAR, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi
Points to discuss
 Irrigation water requirement
 Evapotranspiration – Direct method and Estimation
 Reference evapotranspiration
 Crop evapotranspiration
 Single and Dual crop coefficient
 Soil water stress function
 Irrigation water requirement
 Remote sensing application
 Computation of ET0 and ETc
 Cropwat
Irrigation water requirement
 “....quantity , or depth of irrigation water in addition to
precipitation required to produce the desired crop yield
and quality and to maintain an acceptable salt balance in
the root zone” [National Engineering Handbook, USDA SCS]
 Net irrigation water requirement (NIWR) is the quantity
of water necessary for crop growth; considers only
cropping pattern and climate (FAO)
 Gross irrigation water requirement (GIWR), which is the
quantity of water to be applied in reality, taking into
account water losses (FAO)
 Irrigation use efficiency (Gross/Net ratio)
Soil water balance

P ETc
IWR

RO

SW

DP

IWR = ETc + DP + RO – P ± SW – GW +L

Evapotranspiration
 Water lost from the soil surface and wet vegetation through a
process called evaporation (E)
 Water contained in plant tissues vaporizes into the atmosphere
through small openings in the plant leaf, called stomata called
transpiration (T)
 E and T occur simultaneously and there is no easy way of
distinguishing; together called evapotranspiration (ET)
 ET is an ‘energy-controlled’ process
 Soil energy balance Rn = G + LE + H, where Rn is net
radiation, G is soil heat flux, LE is latent heat flux, H is sensible
heat flux (all terms are positive when flux is toward the surface
and in W m−2)
 Not so easy to use ‘energy balance’ for calculation of ET
Factors affecting ET
 Weather
 Solar radiation
 Air temperature
 Relative humidity
 Wind speed
 Crop characteristics
 Crop type and variety
 Stage of development
 Management
 Irrigation method; crop and soil management
 Environmental conditions
 Soil type, soil depth and layering, exposure
Evapotranspiration: Direct measurement
 Lysimetry
 Soil water balance approach
 Energy balance and
micromeorological approach

Lysimeter at the
Institute of
atmospheric and
climate centre,
Zurich

Luo et al 2003
Evapotranspiration: Direct measurement
 Soil water balance approach
Water balance: One layer Water balance: Two layers

Broca et al 2012
Evapotranspiration: Direct measurement
 Energy balance
Wind profile enters both the LE
and H; To eliminate the need of
wind data, Bowen defined a
ratio 
 = H / LE =  [(T2-T1)/ (e2-
e1)
Measure vertical gradients in
heat and vapour: two
measurements (at least) at ‘1’
and ‘2’ heights
University of California: Coal oil station
Penman combination equation

  is slope of saturation vapour pressure and temperature relation

  is psychometric constant
 Ea is vapour pressure deficit and wind speed combined
 Aerodynamic approach and energy balance approach – combined
 All the parameters are measured at 2 m height
 Does not require surface observation; all meteorological
observation
Evapotranspiration: Direct measurement

 Eddy covariance approach (Source: IRRI)

Evapotranspiration: Essential learning
 Reference crop ET (ET0):
 ET from a reference surface not short of water
 Only climate dependent: can be computed from met data
 Crop ET under standard condition (ETc)
 ET of a healthy crop gown over a large area under optimum
environmental and management condition
 Identical with CWR with consideration of loss, if any
 Crop ET under non-standard condition (ETc-adj)
 ET of a normal crop (may/may not healthy) under optimal/sub-
optimal environmental and management condition

Remember: ET0, ETc, ETc-adj, CWR and

IR
Evapotranspiration: Essential learning

ETc = Kc * Ks* ET0

ETc = Crop ET (mm/day)

ET0 = Reference ET (mm/day)

Kc = Crop coefficient
ETcr  K c ETo
Ks = Soil (stress) coefficient
Evapotranspiration: Estimation
 NRCS endorses four methods
 Penman-Monteith
 Radiation method
 Temperature Method
 Class A evaporation pan
 Pan evaporation method: ET0=kpEpan
Evapotranspiration: Estimation
 Temperature Method: ET0 = Ce (at + bt pT)
Ce = elevation adjustment factor
at = climate adjustment factor
bt = climate adjustment factor
p = mean daily percent of annual daytime hours
T = mean air temperature
 Radiation method
 Rs = insolation
 br = adjustment factor
  = heat of vaporization
  = slope of VP-temperature curve
  = psychometric constant
Evapotranspiration: Estimation
 Penman-Monteith Equation Rn = net radiation
G = soil heat flux
 = slope of the vapor pressure curve
 = psychrometric constant
a = density of air
Cp = specific heat of air
es = saturation vapour pressure
ea = actual vapor pressure
 It is ‘THE’ sole recommended rc = surface (bulk) resistance to vapor
method for calculation of ET0 transport

ra = aerodynamic resistance to sensible
Fairly approximation under a heat and vapor transport
wide range of locations and Takes standard weather
climates parameters and resistance
 Can be used under data- factors to represent cropped
limited situations surface
P-M method: Resistance factors
Crop ET0 estimation: FAO P-M method
Crop coefficient Kc
• Kc varies
predominantly
with crop
characteristics
• Crop height
(influencing ra)
• Albedo (crop-
soil surface)
influencing Rn
• Canopy
resistance
influencing rs
• Evaporation
from soil
influencing
contribution of
E to ET
Crop coefficient Kc

How Kc is segregated into Kcb and Ke

Typical range of Kc
Single and Dual Kc
Kcb is the ratio of ETc and ET0 when the
soil surface is dry, and crop transpiration
is with full potential , i.e water is not
limiting
Ke is the soil evaporation
component
ETc under soil water
stress
Depth of irrigation and interval
 The moisture content at Field Capacity of a
sandy loam soil is 20% by weight and that at
Permanent Wilting Point is 10% by Weight. Root
zone depth is taken as 1 m and the soil bulk
density Is 1.2 g/cm3.

 Calculate the Net and Gross depth of irrigation

required if the Irrigation Efficiency Is 0.7.
 What is the frequency of irrigation if the ETc is 1
mm/day
 Irrigation for how long?
Remote sensing for irrigation scheduling
and irrigation water management

Bastiaanssen, 2000
Web-GIS DSS for irrigation management
Thanks
debashis.chakraborty@icar.gov.in
debashisiari@gmail.com