Controlled drainage with subirrigation: automatic control to manage freshwater use

“Climate change, weather extremes, economic growth, urbanization and increased food production, among other things, are making it more complex to guarantee sufficient freshwater in agricultural and economic sectors. Historically, the Dutch agricultural water management focused on water discharge, which makes it now more vulnerable to droughts. A change is needed to anticipate both wet and dry extremes. Current pipe drainage systems (existing in 34 % of the agricultural fields), installed to discharge water, could be modified to systems to retain and recharge water too. Doing so, so called controlled drainage with subirrigation (CD-SI) systems could be a viable measure to i) discharge water only when needed and ii) retain and iii) recharge water when possible. We show data (years 2017-2022) and process-based model output of four experimental sites at the Dutch Pleistocene uplands where CD-SI is applied. Results show that CD-SI could significantly raise the groundwater level at field scale and increase soil moisture availability to plant roots, leading to higher crop yields.”

(Citation: de Wit, J. A., van Huijgevoort, M., van Dam, J., van den Eertwegh, G., and Bartholomeus, R.: Controlled drainage with subirrigation: automatic control to manage freshwater use, EGU General Assembly 2024, Vienna, Austria, 14–19 Apr 2024, EGU24-9029, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu24-9029, 2024)