Cao et al. (2025) Quantifying Dynamic Water-Saving Thresholds Through Regulating Irrigation: Insights from an Integrated Hydrological Model of the Hetao Irrigation District

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Identification

• Journal: Agriculture
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-12-11
• Authors: Changming Cao, Qingqing Fang, Kun Wang, Xinli Hu, Ziyi Zan, Hangzheng Zhao, Weifeng Yue
• DOI: 10.3390/agriculture15242563

Research Groups

Not detailed in the provided text.

Short Summary

This study developed an integrated SWAT-MODFLOW model for the Hetao Irrigation District to quantify dynamic inter-annual and intra-annual water-saving thresholds, revealing that wet/normal years allow up to 20% savings while dry years are limited to 5%, with autumn irrigation offering the highest intra-annual potential and significant spatial variability in crop yield responses.

Objective

• To quantify dynamic water-saving thresholds at both inter-annual and intra-annual scales by simulating crop yield responses under various irrigation scenarios, addressing a gap in current research regarding sustainable water management in agricultural regions.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Hetao Irrigation District.
• Temporal Scale: Model calibrated (2008–2014) and validated (2014–2016). Scenarios assessed inter-annual (wet, normal, dry years) and intra-annual (spring, summer, autumn).

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Integrated SWAT-MODFLOW model.
• Data sources: Not explicitly detailed in the provided text, but implies hydrological and agricultural data for model calibration and validation, and for simulating crop yield responses under various irrigation scenarios.

Main Results

• The integrated SWAT-MODFLOW model demonstrated reliable performance in capturing local hydrological processes (R² = 0.75, NSE = 0.74).
• Inter-annual water-saving thresholds: Wet and normal years could achieve up to 20% water savings, while dry years were limited to 5%.
• Intra-annual water-saving potential: Autumn irrigation offered the greatest saving potential (33–100%), followed by spring irrigation (33–50%).
• Spatial heterogeneity: Crop responses varied substantially across the region; the western part was particularly sensitive, with even optimal district-wide strategies reducing local crop yields by 10–20%.

Contributions

• Quantifies dynamic water-saving thresholds at both inter-annual and intra-annual scales, which were previously insufficiently quantified.
• Incorporates spatial heterogeneity into the scenario assessment of water-saving strategies.
• Provides a transferable framework for sustainable water management in water-limited agricultural regions.

Funding

Not detailed in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Cao2025Quantifying,
  author = {Cao, Changming and Fang, Qingqing and Wang, Kun and Hu, Xinli and Zan, Ziyi and Zhao, Hangzheng and Yue, Weifeng},
  title = {Quantifying Dynamic Water-Saving Thresholds Through Regulating Irrigation: Insights from an Integrated Hydrological Model of the Hetao Irrigation District},
  journal = {Agriculture},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.3390/agriculture15242563},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture15242563}
}