Concepts and methodologies for agricultural water management

Abstract Water resource management is of paramount importance for sustainable agricultural and socioeconomic development. Agriculture is also one of the prominent factors responsible for the deterioration in the water quality mostly due to poor water management practices and lack of proper knowledge about soil-plant-atmosphere relationship. As such, optimally designed techniques and careful selection of irrigation system can ensure high efficiency and uniform distribution of applied water. Advanced planning and proper management of water could lead us towards sustainable agricultural development with optimal crop production even under physical, environmental, financial and technological restrictions. Therefore, to discuss some of the irrigation-through-computer approaches as a tool for better agricultural water management in this report, we present a detailed description of some of these advanced techniques including decision support systems such as Hydra, Hydrus, DSSAT, CropSyst and MOPECO and irrigation practices such as drip, sprinkler and mulching systems.