agricultural water management 95 (2008) 123–132

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A distributed agro-hydrological model for irrigation

water demand assessment

M. Minacapilli a,*, M. Iovino a, G. D’Urso b

a
Dipartimento di Ingegneria e Tecnologie Agro-Forestali, University of Palermo, Italy
b
Dipartimento di Ingegneria Agraria e Agronomia del Territorio, University of Naples Federico II, Italy

article info abstract

Article history: The actual irrigation water demand in a district in Sicily (Italy) was assessed by the spatially
Received 6 February 2007 distributed agro-hydrological model SIMODIS (SImulation and Management of On-Demand
Accepted 12 September 2007 Irrigation Systems). For each element with homogeneous crop and soil conditions, in which
Published on line 7 November 2007 the considered area can be divided, the model numerically solves the one-dimensional
water flow equation with vegetation parameters derived from Earth Observation data. In
Keywords: SIMODIS, the irrigation scheduling is set by means of two parameters: the threshold value of
Irrigation scheduling soil water pressure head in the root zone, hm, and the fraction of soil water deficit to be re-
Distributed hydrological model filled, D. This study investigated the possibility of identifying a couple of irrigation para-
Remote sensing meters (hm, D) which allowed to reproduce the actual irrigation water demand, given that the
On-demand irrigation system study area was adequately characterized with regard to the spatial distribution of the soil
hydraulic properties and the vegetation conditions throughout the irrigation season. The
spatial distribution of the soil and vegetation properties of the study area, covering an
irrigation district of approximately 800 ha, was accurately characterized during the summer
of 2002. The soil hydraulic properties were identified by an intensive undisturbed soil
sampling, while the vegetation cover was characterized in terms of leaf area index, surface
albedo and fractional soil cover by analysing multispectral LandSat TM imageries. Irrigation
volumes were monitored at parcel scale.
A reference scenario with hm = 700 cm and D = 50% (corresponding to a mean actual to
potential transpiration ratio of 0.95) allowed to reproduce the spatial and temporal dis-
tribution of the actual irrigation demand at the district scale. The spatial variability of the
crop conditions in the considered area had much more influence to assess the irrigation
water demand than the soil hydraulic spatial variability. The proposed approach showed
that, under the agro-climatic conditions typical for the Mediterranean region, SIMODIS may
be a valuable tool in managing irrigation to increase water productivity.
# 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction the development of physically based models for simulating

The issue of efficient water use for irrigation is of utmost
importance in the semi-arid Mediterranean regions, where
water scarcity often causes severe damages in the fragile agro-
ecosystems. In the last two decades, this evidence has induced
the process of exchange of mass and energy in the soil–plant–
atmosphere (SPA) system (Feddes et al., 1978; Bastiaanssen
et al., 2004). In particular, deterministic models have been
proposed to simulate all the components of the water balance
in great detail, including crop growth, irrigation and solute

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 091 7028112; fax: +39 091 484035.
E-mail address: minacap@idra.unipa.it (M. Minacapilli).
0378-3774/$ – see front matter # 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.agwat.2007.09.008
124 agricultural water management 95 (2008) 123–132
transport (Vanclooster et al., 1994; van Dam et al., 1997;
Droogers et al., 2000; Ragab, 2002). These models have been
developed for site-specific applications but they have
seldom been applied to large areas, due to the complexity
in the acquisition of all required input data, often
characterized by spatial and temporal variability. To
overcome this problem, techniques have been proposed
which involve the use of geostatistical approaches to
spatialize the measured soil hydraulic properties (Warrick
and Nielsen, 1980; Wosten et al., 1986) integrated with data
derived from Earth Observation to gather quantitative
information on the temporal and spatial distribution of
selected vegetational parameters (Choudhury et al., 1994;
Moreno et al., 2002).
The knowledge of the spatial distribution of the soil and
vegetation parameters is of crucial importance for the
assessment of crop water use and for the definition of
management strategies aiming at improving the efficiency
of irrigation. The spatial distribution of the irrigation water use
is influenced by two components: a first one is determinis-
tically linked to the physical processes involved, which
themselves are depending on the spatial and temporal
variability of climate, soil and vegetation; a second stochastic
component is represented by the farmers’ behaviour in the
irrigation practice.
At temporal scales larger than a few days, i.e. one week,
and in presence of an on-demand irrigation scheduling, the
first component is largely predominant on the second one.
On the condition that the spatial variability of climate can be
neglected compared to that of soil and vegetation, the
irrigation scheduling can be described by means of two
parameters: the threshold value of soil water pressure head
in the root zone, hm, and the fraction of soil water deficit to
be re-filled with irrigation, D. The first parameter, hm, is crop
dependent, since it describes the crop tolerance to water
stress; the second, D, is related to the soil hydraulic
properties. Both parameters, to a certain extent, are site-
specific, in the sense that they reflect the average perception
of farmers to the soil water dynamics and their attitude to
induce or not water stress for quantitative and qualitative
production issues. This aspect has particular relevance
when determining irrigation strategies for vineyards where
drought is controlled during fruit ripening in order to
improve the wine quality. Applications of agro-hydrological
models to simulate the soil water balance for grapes and
other fruit-tree crops were carried out by several authors
(Bastiaanssen et al., 1996; Droogers et al., 2000; D’Urso, 2001;
Ben-Asher et al., 2006).
Assessment of hm and D represents the basis for the
simulation model SIMODIS (SImulation and Management of On-
Demand Irrigation Systems), developed by D’Urso (2001). In this
study, the SIMODIS procedure was applied to simulate the
spatial and temporal variability of the water demand of
vineyards covering an area of approximately 800 ha located
in the south-west coast of Sicily (Italy). The increasing
diffusion of the wine-specialized, high-income grape culti-
vation in this area emphasized the need of irrigation
strategies aimed to optimize available water during drought
periods. Available water consumptions for the season 2002
allowed to compare the spatial and temporal distributions of
the simulated and measured irrigation volumes for the
considered area.
2. The SIMODIS procedure
SIMODIS was conceived as a Decision Support System for the
simulation of the operation of an irrigation network based on
the following aspects: (i) spatial and temporal variability of the
soil water deficit; (ii) water resources availability; (iii) struc-
tural capability of the conveyance and distribution irrigation
network.
The first issue is modelled by considering distinct sepa-
rated elements with homogeneous crop, soil and climate
conditions. Assuming that the soil water flow in each element
is mainly a one-dimensional process, the SWAP model (van
Dam et al., 1997, Kroes et al., 2000) is applied in distributed
form. In each element, the vertical distributions of the water
content, u (L3 L3), and pressure head, h (L), along the soil
profile at various times, are obtained by numerically solving
the equation:
  
@h @ @h
CðhÞ ¼ KðhÞ þ 1 þ SðhÞ (1)
@t @z @z
under prescribed upper and lower boundary conditions. In
Eq. (1) z (L) is the vertical coordinate, assumed positive
upwards, t (T) is time, C (L1) is the differential moisture
capacity, K(h) (L T1) is the soil hydraulic conductivity function
and S (T1) is a root uptake term that, for the case of uniform
root distribution, is defined by the following equation:
Tp
SðhÞ ¼ aw ðhÞ (2)
jzr j
in which Tp (L T1) is the potential transpiration, zr (L) the
rooting depth and aw is a h-dependant reduction factor which
accounts for water deficit and oxygen stress (Feddes et al.,
1978). The solution of Eqs. (1) and (2) requires the knowledge of
the soil hydraulic properties, i.e. the soil water retention curve,
u(h), and the soil hydraulic conductivity function, K(h); there-
fore, detailed field and/or laboratory investigations are
needed.
Boundary conditions are defined according to the proce-
dure described by D’Urso et al. (1999). In particular, the upper
boundary condition depends on rainfall and potential
evapotranspiration rate, ETp (L T1), that is obtained by the
product of the crop coefficient Kc and the Penman-Monteith
reference evapotranspiration rate, ET0 (L T1) (Allen et al.,
1998). In SIMODIS, ET0 is used as a lumped input, while the
spatial distribution of the crop coefficient Kc is obtained using
a remote sensing approach based on the analytical relation-
ship proposed by Stanghellini et al. (1990). It requires the
knowledge of canopy parameters such as the leaf area index,
LAI, the fractional vegetation cover, the surface albedo, and
crop height. According to Allen et al. (1998), a standard
minimum stomatal resistance of 100 s m1 was used in this
study. The LAI is also used to fraction the ETp into potential
transpiration rate, Tp (L T1) and potential soil evaporation
rate, Ep (L T1) (Choudhury et al., 1987). To this aim, assuming
 agricultural water management 95 (2008) 123–132
that the net radiation inside the canopy decreases according
to an exponential function and the soil heat flux can be
neglected, the following equations can be adopted (Ritchie,
1972):
Ep ¼ ETp expðkgr LAIÞ (3)
Tp ¼ ETp  Ep (4)
where kgr is the extinction coefficient for global solar radiation
(Campbell and Norman, 1998).
Several studies showed the possibility of detecting the
above-mentioned canopy parameters from remote sensing
data with different spatial and temporal resolution. In
particular, the surface reflectance in different bands of visible
and infrared spectrum can be related to the LAI (Baret and
Guyot, 1991). In the SIMODIS procedure, D’Urso (2001)
suggested the use of a semi-empirical relationship for the
retrieval of the LAI from the Weighted Difference Vegetation Index
(WDVI) (Clevers, 1989). Using remote sensing data and image-
processing techniques, the spatial distributions of ETp can be
derived for a given set of climatic variables. Then, these maps
can be used to set the upper boundary condition of the soil
water flow model in each elementary unit in which the
irrigation system can be divided.
Different options are available in SIMODIS to schedule
irrigation (i.e. determining irrigation times and specific
volumes); for the purpose of this study, as mentioned in the
introduction, two parameters needed to be defined: the
threshold value of soil water pressure head in the root zone,
hm, as timing criterion, and the fraction of soil water deficit, D,
to be re-filled with irrigation water as volume criterion.
Fig. 1 – Map of the study area with indication of the soil units and sampling locations.
125
3. Materials and methods
3.1. The study area
The SIMODIS procedure was applied to simulate seasonal
irrigation water use of 136 grape fields distributed within a
850 ha irrigation district of the ‘‘Basso Belice’’ Consortium
(Fig. 1) located on the southern coast of Sicily. The climate in
this area is typically Mediterranean: in 2002 the total annual
rainfall was 654 mm and the reference evapotranspiration
1077 mm. Apart from wine grapes that occupy 46% of the
total area, other crops are olives, citrus, artichoke and
wheat. The soils of the area are mainly alluvial soils formed
from river deposits which overlay a deep and highly
conductive calcarenitic aquifer. A specifically conducted
soil survey recognized eight soil units (Fig. 1). Association of
brown soils, occurring in about 57% of the area, are located
on a flat fluvial terrace in the west; the textures range from
sandy loam to loam. Vertisols (43% of the total area) occur in
the hilly eastern part of the area and the texture is mainly
silty clay loam. Irrigation water is delivered by means of a
pressurised pipe network on the basis of an ‘‘on demand’’
system. Drip irrigation is the most used irrigation system for
grape.
3.2. Data collection
The data set for the application of SIMODIS includes four main
information types: (i) soil hydraulic parameters; (ii) ground-
water data for the lower boundary condition; (iii) vegetation
parameters for the upper boundary condition; (iv) irrigation
volumes.
126 agricultural water management 95 (2008) 123–132

Table 1 – Soil characteristics and hydraulic parameters according to van Genuchten (1980)
Soil units Na Cl (%) Si (%) Sa (%) BD ln Ks uS (m3 m3) ur (m3 m3) n a (cm1)
(g cm3) (Ks in cm d1)

Calcareous 13 8.4 35.2 56.4 1.293 3.9(24) 0.464(10) 0.095(45) 1.317(9) 0.091(45)
brown soils
Vertisols 13 30.7 45.6 23.8 1.270 1.8(36) 0.491(6) 0.067(101) 1.150(5) 0.123(66)
Idromorphic 8 9.6 23.4 66.9 1.336 3.6(16) 0.445(10) 0.101(27) 1.546(8) 0.039(58)
brown soils
Vertex brown soils 7 38.1 40.1 21.8 1.302 1.6(104) 0.498(10) 0.021(260) 1.123(3) 0.089(85)
Lixiviate soils 2 24.9 19.9 55.2 1.205 3.7 0.410 0.138 1.295 0.087
Soils’ complex 2 12.6 43.7 43.7 1.164 3.3 0.490 0.090 1.271 0.091

Reported data are averages of the results obtained for the N samples collected within each soil unit. The coefficients of variation (%) are given
in parentheses.
a
N: Sample number; Cl: clay; Si: silt; Sa: sand; BD: soil bulk density; see text for other symbols.

The distribution of soil hydraulic properties within the area
was deduced from laboratory measurements performed on
undisturbed soil cores (D’Urso et al., 2005) collected according
to information retrieved from the soil survey map (Fig. 1). For
each soil core (diameter d = 8.5 cm, height L = 5 cm), saturated
hydraulic conductivity, Ks (L T1) was determined by the
standard constant head technique (Reynolds et al., 2002);
water contents, u, corresponding to pressure head values
ranging from 5 to 15,300 cm were determined by both a
hanging water column apparatus (Burke et al., 1986) and a
pressure plate apparatus (Dane and Hopmans, 2002). The
water retention function of van Genuchten (1980) was fitted to
the measured u–h values using the RETC (RETention Curve)
code (van Genuchten et al., 1991). According to the Mualem-
van Genuchten model (van Genuchten, 1980), the unsaturated
hydraulic conductivity relationship was described by the
water retention parameters (i.e. the saturated and residual
water content, us (L3 L3) and ur (L3 L3), and two empirical
parameters, a (L1) and n, affecting the shape of retention
curve, with a > 0 and n > 1) and the measured Ks values. A
representative set of parameters was obtained for each soil
unit by simply averaging the soil hydraulic parameters
estimated for the cores collected in that soil unit (Table 1).
This choice was imposed by both the limited variability of
estimated/measured parameters and the restricted number of
samples within some soil units that prevented a more detailed
spatial analysis. A profile depth of 3 m, with uniform soil
hydraulic properties was considered for each field.
Monitoring of three wells within the irrigated area during
2002 showed that the water table was always deeper than
4.5 m from the soil surface. Therefore, a gradient of 1 was
accepted as the lower boundary condition in SIMODIS.
The definition of upper boundary condition in terms of
potential evapotranspiration fluxes was performed by a

Fig. 2 – Spatial distribution of LAI derived from the LandSat TM image of 07/07/2002.
 agricultural water management 95 (2008) 123–132 127

Table 3 – Mean values of the specific irrigation volume, V,

and total irrigation volume, I, supplied by each water
application with the most widely applied irrigation
strategies in the study area
Water I3 strategy I4 strategy
application
DOYa V (mm) I (m3) DOY V (mm) I (m3)

1 183 20.6 158 179 18.9 180

2 197 19.2 144 190 14.4 162
3 218 20.0 158 212 17.6 130
4 – – – 224 12.8 144
a
Day of the year.

Fig. 3 – Variation of the mean crop coefficient values, Kc, for
the 136 grape fields considered.
multi-temporal analysis of LandSat TM images at three times
during the growing season: (a) 13 February 2002, initial stage;
(b) 27 May 2002, prebloom stage; (c) 7 July 2005, fruit stage. The
image processing produced maps of the canopy parameters of
the entire area. The simplified model CLAIR (Clevers Leaf Area
Index Relationship) (Clevers, 1989) was used to derive the
spatial distribution of the leaf area index. The variation of the
radiation absorption and reflection in a canopy that partially
covers the soil is described by the following semi-empirical
relationship:
 
1 WDVI
LAI ¼  ln 1  (5)
a WDVI1
in which WDVI is derived from LandSat TM3 and TM4 bands
(Clevers, 1989); WDVI1 is the asymptotical value of WDVI for
LAI!1, and a* is an extinction coefficient, expressing the
increase of LAI for a unit increase of WDVI, that has to be
estimated from simultaneous measurements of LAI and
WDVI. In our case, the calibration of Eq. (5) was performed
by in situ LAI measurements collected with the portable
instrument LAI2000 (Li-Cor, Lincoln, NE). A complete descrip-
tion of the analysis conducted for the study area is given in
Minacapilli et al. (2005, 2006). By using the calibrated Eq. (5)
with a* = 0.255 and WDVI1 = 0.57, the LAI map with a resolu-
tion of 30 m (pixel size) was obtained for each available Land-
Sat TM image (Fig. 2). The resulting pixel-scale LAI values were
averaged within each field to calculate the mean Kc and ETp
values. The spatial variability of Kc for each date was higher
during the peak growth (Fig. 3). The missing Kc value at the end
of the cropping season (day of the year, DOY = 320) was
derived from literature data (Allen et al., 1998). Others crop
parameters required by SIMODIS, i.e. kgr, zr and the critical
pressure head values defining the reduction factor aw in Eq. (2)
were taken from specific literature (Taylor and Ashcroft, 1972;
Doorenbos and Kassam, 1979; Wesseling et al., 1991) with
some minor adaptations based on local observations and
knowledge. The above-mentioned crop parameters for the
case study are reported in Table 2. GIS tools were used to
associate to each field the combination of crop and soil para-
meters according to the input scheme of SIMODIS (D’Urso,
2001).
Irrigation water volumes were monitored in all the 136
selected grape fields during the 2002 season. From a
preliminary analysis of this data set, irrigation applications
in the grape fields occurred from the end of June (around DOY
179) to the first decade of August (around DOY 224). In
particular, in 73% of the cases, two typical irrigation strategies

Table 2 – Main crop parameters used for the wine grape

of the study area
Parameters Value

Critical pressure heads (cm)

h2 (h below which optimum water
uptake starts in the root zone)
h3 (h below which optimum water
uptake reduction starts in the root zone)
h4 (wilting point, no water 8000
uptake at lower pressure heads)
kgr (extinction coefficient)
zr (rooting depth) (cm)
30
600 Fig. 4 – Relative transpiration, T/Tp, obtained from
preliminary simulations. Dots indicate the mean values of
the specific irrigation volume for the most widely used
irrigation strategies. Vertical and horizontal bars indicate
0.5
variability in specific volume and irrigation time,
45
respectively.
128 agricultural water management 95 (2008) 123–132

Table 4 – Irrigation scheduling parameters selected for

the different simulated scenarios
Scenario hm (cm) D (%) RMSEa (m3) Ev (%)

1. (T/Tp = 0.97) 450 45 3754 25

2. (T/Tp = 0.95) 700 50 2814 8
3. (T/Tp = 0.90) 1000 55 4163 32
4. (T/Tp = 0.85) 1250 58 4403 36
a
RMSE: Root mean square error of simulated daily irrigation
volume compared to the measured value; Ev: difference between
simulated and measured seasonal cumulative irrigation volume.

The daily values of relative transpiration, i.e. the actual to

Fig. 5 – Daily values of relative transpiration, T/Tp, vs. (a)
mean soil pressure head values, hm, and (b) fraction of
water deficit values, D, both computed in the root zone of
the soil profile.
potential transpiration ratio, T/Tp, for the two irrigation
strategies are plotted in Fig. 4. These plots evidence a similar
temporal distribution of daily T/Tp values with a mean
seasonal value of about 0.95 in both cases. It should be noted
that a value of T/Tp = 0.95 was adopted by Droogers et al. (2000)
in their application of SWAP made on grape in Turkey as the
lower threshold to start irrigation. Our results seem to
confirm that, in the Mediterranean areas, a value of T/
Tp = 0.95 may be assumed as characteristic to schedule
irrigation for grape.
The relationships between the daily T/Tp values and the
two irrigation parameters hm and D are shown in Fig. 5a and
b. From the plot in Fig. 5a can be noticed that the relative
transpiration values strongly depend on hm in the entire
range of pressure head values from 0 to 2500 cm. Relative
transpiration dependence on the water deficit is otherwise
limited to D values greater than 50%. For D < 50%, T/Tp is
independent from D and equal, on average, to 0.95. For both
irrigation strategies, most of the variability of hm is
comprised between 300 and 1300 cm; in correspondence
of the same interval, the value of D varies between 40
and 60%.
On the basis of this preliminary analysis, four different
scenarios were simulated, each one with a different couple of
irrigation parameter values (hm, D), corresponding to a range
of mean seasonal T/Tp values between 0.85 and 0.97. The four
water management scenarios, that were used in SIMODIS to
simulate the farmers’ water demand at district scale, are
summarized in Table 4.

(named I3 and I4) were practiced, respectively with 3 and 4

water applications (Table 3).

3.3. Application of SIMODIS

In order to identify the values of the irrigation scheduling

parameters hm (mean soil pressure head in the root zone)
and D (fraction of the water deficit in the root zone), a
preliminary simulation was performed on an ideal grape
field with soil hydraulic functions corresponding to those of
the prevailing soil type in the study area and averaged
vegetation parameters. By using the irrigation dates and
supply volumes derived from the observed data, the daily
values of hm and D were calculated. For the sake of simplicity
only the two most widely applied irrigation strategies Fig. 6 – Comparison between measured and simulated
(Table 3) were considered. daily irrigation volumes.
 agricultural water management 95 (2008) 123–132 129

Fig. 7 – Comparison between measured and simulated

cumulative irrigation volumes.

Fig. 8 – Comparison between measured and simulated

seasonal irrigation volumes at secondary unit level.
4. Results and discussion

The simulations with SIMODIS were made for each scenario of

Table 4, represented by a couple of irrigation parameter
values, hm and D. Then, the simulated daily irrigation volumes
at the district scale were compared with the measured data.
The scenario resulting in the lowest value of the root mean
square error (RMSE) between simulated and measured daily
irrigation volumes was scenario 2 (RMSE = 2814 m3), corre-
sponding to a value of T/Tp = 0.95 (Fig. 6), in agreement with the
findings of the preliminary analysis. For this scenario, that we
can now consider as the ‘‘reference’’ one, the estimated mean
value of the seasonal specific irrigation volume was 619 m3/ha,
near to the mean measured value of 574 m3/ha. A good
agreement was also found with regard to the temporal
evolution of the cumulative water consumption at district
scale (Fig. 7), with a difference between simulated and
measured seasonal cumulated irrigation volumes less than
8%. The couple of irrigation parameter values for the reference
scenario (hm = 700 cm; D = 50%) can be adopted to represent
the average behaviour of farmers in irrigation scheduling, and
they can be varied in order to simulate alternative scenarios of
water management.
The monthly and annual water balance components for the
136 grape fields obtained using the reference scenario are
summarized in Table 5. The water use efficiency could be
evaluated from the components of the water balance distin-
guishing between, for instance, soil evaporation and crop
transpiration, groundwater recharge and capillary rise. In our
case, the actual transpiration varied from April to the end of
September according the phenological phases of grape. The
total simulated irrigation supply of 60 mm was distributed
during the months of June, July and August in agreement with
the observed data, while significant downward fluxes through
the bottom of the profile occurred only in December because of
the high rainfall (194 mm). No runoff occurred as, for the
observed rainfall intensities, water always infiltrated in the soil.

Table 5 – Monthly and total annual water balance components computed by SIMODIS for the 136 grape fields using
scenario 2
Precipitation ET0 Irrigation Actual transpiration Actual Downward flux at profile
(mm) (mm) (mm) (mm) evaporation (mm) bottom (mm)

January 43.4 25.8 0.0 0.0 5.1 3.0 (78)

February 22.3 47.3 0.0 0.0 7.8 1.9 (65)
March 9.8 77.9 0.0 0.5 7.7 1.7 (59)
April 45.8 94.6 0.0 3.8 (32) 9.2 1.4 (55)
May 64.2 140.3 0.0 19.7 (38) 21.5 1.3 (54)
June 8.0 171.9 8.6 (194) 34.0 (24) 10.2 (14) 16.2 (56)
July 18.0 176.4 37.4 (31) 35.7 (18) 17.4 (15) 11.2 (56)
August 11.2 138.8 14.0 (133) 28.3 (18) 12.6 (28) 8.2 (41)
September 30.8 89.2 0.0 14.7 (15) 10.9 (16) 12.0 (22)
October 70.0 60.5 0.0 4.0 (20) 14.7 (4) 1.8 (91)
November 111.8 39.1 0.0 0.0 6.8 1.8 (79)
December 194.4 17.8 0.0 0.0 2.6 102.2 (39)

Total 630 1079 60 141 123 163

Coefficients of variation (%) are given in parentheses.

130 agricultural water management 95 (2008) 123–132

The reliability of the results obtained at the district level
using scenario 2 combined with the spatial distributed
approach for both soil and plant characterization were also
confirmed at the secondary unit level, that is a cluster of plots
served by a common node of the pipeline network. By the
considered spatial distributed approach, the prediction of
seasonal irrigation volumes at secondary unit level was very
satisfactory resulting in a significant determination coefficient
R2 = 0.84 between simulated and measured values (Fig. 8). This
result could not be confirmed at field scale where the
differences between simulated and measured irrigation
volumes were attributed to different management behaviours
depending on water availability as well as on farmers’
subjectivity to recognize the crop water requirement.
In terms of spatial distributions, the outputs of SIMODIS
allowed to obtain a set of thematic maps useful to irrigation
management. In Fig. 9, the spatial distributions of the annual
values of actual transpiration, actual evaporation, irrigation
and flux at the bottom of the soil profile are mapped for the
study area. These plots are useful to distinguish sub-areas
with different hydrological response to irrigation manage-
ment.
The reliability of these results shows the importance of the
knowledge of spatial soil and vegetation distribution in
simulating the spatial and temporal variation of water
demand at district scale. In order to evaluate the relevance
of the distributed approach used to define the soil hydraulic
parameters and the upper boundary conditions, two further
scenarios were simulated, characterized by two different
levels of soil–crop information:
1) lumped crop, with a unique Kc value for the entire irrigation
district, varying in time according to the mean distribution
reported in Fig. 3, combined with spatially distributed soil
hydraulic parameters (Table 1);
2) lumped soil, with soil hydraulic properties averaged for the
entire district area, combined with the spatially distributed
Kc values obtained from remote sensing.

Fig. 9 – Spatial distributions of annual values of selected components of the water balance computed by SIMODIS using
scenario 2: (a) downward flux at profile bottom; (b) irrigation; (c) actual evaporation; (d) actual transpiration.
 agricultural water management 95 (2008) 123–132
Fig. 10 – Daily irrigation volumes simulated by the
‘‘reference’’ scenario 2 and the lumped soil and vegetation
scenarios.
The first simulation corresponds to a qualitatively high
soil information, compared to a poor crop information,
based solely on land-use; this refers to a simulation in which
vegetation parameters are extracted from tabulated data on
crop phenology, independently from their actual develop-
ment. The second simulation refers to a limited information
on soil properties combined with a high-quality level
information on the spatio-temporal distribution of crop
properties. The comparison among these two simulations
and the ‘‘reference’’ scenario 2 is shown in Fig. 10. The plot
evidences that, for this case study, the spatial variability of
vegetation parameters, expressed by Kc, has greater influ-
ence on simulated water requirement than the soil
hydraulic characteristics. Indeed, when we adopted a
lumped crop coefficient, even with the same set of irrigation
parameters of the reference scenario, we obtained a
different temporal distribution of irrigation volumes that
resulted in an overprediction around DOY 190, and also in
different seasonal cumulative volumes. In contrast, adop-
tion of a lumped soil characterization resulted in a much
smaller difference with the reference scenario. These results
evidenced that, in the agro-climatic conditions of the study
area, a good knowledge of the spatial distribution of crop
properties is likely to be more important than an accurate
soil hydraulic characterization.
5. Conclusions
The main aim of the study was the assessment of the water
management options in an on-demand irrigation system to
optimize available water in a droughty Mediterranean
environment. The model SIMODIS was used to simulate the
spatial and temporal variability of farmers’ water demand for
a set of 136 irrigated grape fields in an 850 ha irrigation district.
The spatial distributions of vegetation parameters, used in
SIMODIS to fix the upper boundary conditions, were obtained
from Earth Observation data, while soil hydraulic properties
were derived from laboratory measurements performed on 45
undisturbed soil cores and from soil survey maps. Irrigation
131
scheduling in SIMODIS was set on the basis of the simulated
threshold values of the soil water pressure head in the root
zone, hm, and the application volume, D, taken as a percentage
of the corresponding soil water deficit. The findings of this
study confirmed that the two irrigation parameters (hm, D) can
be tuned to adequately reproduce the spatial and temporal
evolution of crop water use. A simple methodology based on
the evaluation of the daily values of the relative transpiration,
T/Tp, was proposed to identify the hm, and D values resulting in
the best agreement between measured and simulated irriga-
tion volumes.
The spatial distributed approach adopted in SIMODIS
allowed a reliable simulation of the spatial and temporal
variation of water demand at district scale. For the case study,
the spatial variability of crop conditions was more significant
than the soil hydraulic spatial variability, showing the
potentiality of remote sensing techniques to gather spatial
and temporal distributions of vegetation parameters, like Kc.
With these characteristics, the proposed approach can be
effectively used for supporting the decision making process in
the management of irrigation water resources, and for
improving the efficiency of the irrigation systems.
Acknowledgement
The authors are grateful to Dr. Claudio Gucciardi for his help in
collecting irrigation data and setting up the GIS tools.
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