Moving beyond ‘more crop per drop’: insights from two decades of research on agricultural water productivity

ABSTRACT

Concern over increasing water scarcity has led to the introduction of the concept of agricultural water productivity and an emphasis on interventions to achieve ‘more crop per drop’. Yet, a strong debate continues on how the concept is to be defined and used. Drawing largely from the irrigation literature, the origins of the concept and its methodological developments are reviewed, and its use in applied work over two decades is discussed. Based on this analysis of conceptual and applied research, key insights into the concept’s contributions and limitations are presented, as well as opportunities for further refinements.     

Commercial farmers’ strategies to control water resources in South Africa: an empirical view of reform

This article shows how large-scale commercial farmers, individually and collectively, are responding to land and water reform processes in the Thukela River basin, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. With a high degree of innovative agency, commercial farmers have effectively executed four strategies, enabling them to adapt and use their access to resources to neutralize multiple water reform efforts that once promised to be catalysts for inclusive change in the post-apartheid era. It is likely that policy alone will not facilitate the envisioned transformation, if local practices are not sufficiently understood and anticipated by the governmental officials charged with the implementation of water reform processes.     

西藏燕麦主要种植区灌溉定额空间分布及影响因素

燕麦为西藏自治区典型牧草之一,由于种植区地域辽阔,灌溉试验结果受限,西藏燕麦主要种植区的灌溉定额尚不明确。本文在西藏燕麦主要种植区内选取28个典型站点进行资料收集,遵循农业气候相似原则进行区域划分,基于水量平衡法揭示了西藏燕麦主要种植区灌溉定额的空间分布特征,并根据统计学原理分析了其影响因素。研究表明:燕麦主要种植区的灌溉定额呈由西藏中部至东部呈现先递增后递减的趋势,50%水文年下的燕麦灌溉定额在56~265 mm之间变化。降雨量是影响研究区内燕麦灌溉定额的主要因素(R²为0.515),ET₀次之(R²为0.152);其它气象因素中,日照时数对研究区燕麦灌溉定额影响较大(R²为0.462),且呈正相关关系;相对湿度对燕麦灌溉定额影响较小。西藏燕麦主要种植区的灌溉定额及其空间分布可为西藏自治区灌溉用水管理提供支撑。     

Operational scheduling of responsive prosumer farms for day‐ahead peak shaving by agricultural demand response aggregators

This paper proposes a novel structure to optimize the operational strategies of responsive farms for day‐ahead peak shaving. To achieve the aim, the modern irrigation system of farms, including groundwater, surface water, and booster water pumps, are modeled mathematically. To develop the demand response (DR) potentials of the farms, electrical storage systems, and self‐generation facilities, including thermal distributed generations and on‐farm solar sites, are addressed. In order to facilitate the integration of the agricultural DR programs into the electricity market, a mathematical formulation for agricultural demand response aggregator (ADRA) is suggested. The ADRA participates in the day‐ahead electricity market on behalf of the responsive farms. To overcome the price uncertainty of the electricity market, a robust optimization approach is addressed. This approach determines the robust decisions of farms in the worst‐case realizations of the uncertain electricity price. Regarding on‐farm solar sites located in rural areas, a data‐driven approach is used to estimate the solar power generation of a significant number of sites without needing to install costly communication and measurement infrastructures. Finally, the proposed approach is implemented on agricultural lands in the northeast of Iran. The numerical results show that the suggested approach provides day‐ahead peak shaving for the power systems meeting the crop's water requirements.     

雾化布液堆浸某铀矿石的柱浸试验

采用雾化布液新工艺,进行了某铀矿石的小型室内柱浸试验,并对雾化、喷淋、滴淋3种布液方式作了对比。结果表明,雾化布液的均匀性好,矿堆无板结现象,矿石浸出性能较好,浸出周期缩短,液固比小,适宜于某铀矿石的处理。     

堆浸雾化布液条件实验研究

布液是堆浸浸出工艺中一个重要环节之一。本文介绍了一种新的布液方法——雾化布液。用铀矿石模拟矿堆，通过堆浸雾化布液条件实验，得出使用该布液法能得到较高的浸出液铀平均浓度及较高的浸出率，能缩短浸出时间，提高经济效益，从而验证了雾化布液的优越性。为堆浸矿山采用雾化布液提供参考依据。     

钱江新城新塘河水处理场出水综合利用工程

介绍了新塘河取水泵站及水处理场将部分出水用于新城范围内的道路清扫、绿化浇灌及景观换水等,避免了资源的浪费,真正做到了低水低用,高水高用。供水流量Q=100L/s,供水水质基本达到城市城镇杂用水质控制指标。