Maldonado-Batres et al. (2026) Reference-Based Model for Post-Irrigation Soil-Moisture Recovery in a Positive State Space

Identification

• Journal: Journal of Natural Resources and Farming
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-09-22
• Authors: Gustavo A. Maldonado-Batres, Marlon M. López-Flores, William Campillay‐Llanos
• DOI: 10.7770/jonraf-v2-art2906

Research Groups

• Escuela de Matemática y Ciencias de la Computación, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras (UNAH)
• Laboratório de Inteligência Artificial, Robótica e Cibernética (LIARC), Instituto Militar de Engenharia (IME-RJ)
• Departamento de Ciencias Matemáticas y Físicas; Núcleo de Investigación en Producción Alimentaria (NIPA), Universidad Católica de Temuco

Short Summary

This study develops a reference-based positive-state law to describe sensor-reported soil-moisture recovery after irrigation and evaluates its conditional empirical performance without claiming a hydraulic mechanism or universal superiority.

Objective

• Develop a reduced response model for a positive state measured relative to an event-specific reference.
• Evaluate the conditional trajectory after a flow-derived irrigation pulse, conditional on a detectable recovery that remains above an event-specific reference for a sufficient duration and has adequate sampling density.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Single strawberry production farm in Itagua, Paraguay.
• Temporal Scale: 12 July to 16 September 2022.

Methodology and Data

• Models used:
  • Proportional model (Eq. (4))
  • Additive power law model (Eq. (5))
  • Exponential model (Eq. (6))
  • Stretched exponential model (Eq. (7))
• Data sources: Open Mendeley Data record “Smart irrigation control system data with soil moisture, flow meter and electrovalve relay” (Manzano et al., 2023).

Main Results

• The proportional curve outperformed the exponential and additive power in 32/36 events, but the stretched exponential had lower full-window error in 33/36.
• The stretched exponential gave lower full-window error in most events, while its ordered-time hold-out performance was essentially tied with the proportional curve.

Contributions

• A positive-state parameterization and error geometry that defines a coherent positive state, an equilibrium represented by the ratio 1, and an exact linear law for the logarithmic representative.
• The study provides a transparent, reproducible workflow and highlights the importance of selecting a reference independently when possible and propagating reference and peak uncertainty jointly.

Funding

• M.M.L.-F. received partial funding from project EVAAT-GCN under FINEP agreement 01.24.0661.00, ref. 3311/24.

Citation

@article{MaldonadoBatres2026ReferenceBased,
  author = {Maldonado-Batres, Gustavo A. and López-Flores, Marlon M. and Campillay‐Llanos, William},
  title = {Reference-Based Model for Post-Irrigation Soil-Moisture Recovery in a Positive State Space},
  journal = {Journal of Natural Resources and Farming},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.7770/jonraf-v2-art2906},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.7770/jonraf-v2-art2906}
}