Anticipating on amplifying water stress, optimal crop production supported by climate-adaptive water management

Since climate change induces more extreme dry and wet conditions that have impact on crop growth and agricultural crop yield, it is important to anticipate on these amplifying soil moisture conditions. Technically advanced controlled drainage systems like the Climate Adaptive Drainage (CAD) system allow for such anticipative water management.
This ‘TKI Groundwater for Crops’ project aims at the development and actual field test of a controlled drainage management algorithm for CAD at the plot and farm scale. This algorithm should provide dynamic drainage crest settings for controlled drainage systems in order to optimize crop production and agricultural yield. By reducing both oxygen and water stress for crops, yields will increase, followed by an increase of the farmer’s income. Crop yield depends on the actual transpiration of the crop, facilitated by soil moisture conditions in the root zone. As long as these soil moisture conditions in the root zone are good, transpiration will be at an optimal (maximum) level, given the meteorological boundary conditions.
We developed a climate adaptive drainage management algorithm (CAD-MA) which we theoretically tested on measurement data of soil moisture and groundwater levels at the Haaksbergen experimental CAD-field in the Netherlands. Simulations showed that dynamic drainage crest level control can lead to up to 10% increase of crop yield under wet conditions, and gives a less pronounced increase of crop yield during dry periods. SWAP model results at the plot-scale were successfully coupled with the SPHY spatial hydrological model at a 25m spatial resolution. This enables farm-scale analysis and automated drainage control, which can be expanded to irrigation control and a regional-scale optimization procedure.