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Proceedings ESA Conference, Copenhagen 2004, ISBN 87-7611-062-1, pp 929-930.

WATER RESOURCE STRATEGIES AND DROUGHT ALLEVIATION IN WESTERN
BALKAN AGRICULTURE (WATERWEB)
S-E Jacobsen1, S Quarrie2, CR Jensen1, S Hansen1, P Quinn3, M Gorton3, M Bacon4, K
Jones4, M Chaves5, C Lopes5, L Rodrigues5, J Pereira5, A Monteiro5, M Cerejeira5, R
Stikic2, S Petkovic2, R Stricevic2, V Poleksic2, S Pekic2, V Zaric2, D Bosev6, G Vasilevski6, T
Mitkova6, V Kakurinov6, M Peshevski6, S Ilic-Popova6, M Bozic7, G Nikolic7 & L Mihajlov8
1
Department of Agricultural Sciences, KVL University - DK 2630 Taastrup - Denmark
2
Faculty of Agriculture, Belgrade University - 11080 Belgrade-Zemun - Serbia and Montenegro
3
University of Newcastle - Newcastle NE1 7RU - UK
4
School of Biological Sciences, University of Lancaster - Lancaster LA1 4YQ - UK
5
Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade Técnica de Lisboa - Lisbon 1349-017 - Portugal
6
Faculty of Agriculture, University of St Cyril and Methodius - Skopje - Macedonia
7
Institute 'Jaroslav Cerni', Pinosava, Serbia and Montenegro
8
Institute for Southern Crops, Strumica, Macedonia

Introduction
Climate model projections suggest a general increase in temperature together with drier
conditions in the south and centre of Europe (IPCC, 1998). Many of these regions could
experience a general increase in evapotranspiration together with a probable reduction in water
availability, decrease in runoff and reduced snow cover of crops during the winter. The Balkan
region in general is already suffering from drought, especially during the main growing season,
and the climate predictions are for the intensity, frequency and duration of these droughts to
increase. Macedonia has many heterogeneous climatic regions. Average annual rainfall can be as
low as 470 mm and maximum air temperatures up to 44˚C (Vasilevski et al., 2000).
Consequently drought is a major limitation to agricultural production, at least as much as in
Serbia.
At the individual farm scale, one approach to using water more economically is to apply deficit
irrigation (DI) techniques, where crops are irrigated only in their most sensitive phases for
drought, with lower amounts of water, thus saving water while simultaneously maintaining crop
yield and quality. Studies on the effects of DI on crop yield and WUE, where WUE is defined as
the ratio between grain, fruit or tuber yield and total evapotranspiration during the growth
season, show that crop yield can be largely maintained and product quality can, in some cases, be
improved while reducing irrigation volume. Even though deficit irrigation is practised commonly
around the world, there has been comparatively little research to characterize the optimum DI
treatment for particular crops in particular droughted environments (Davies et al., 2000).
Alternate root drying (ARD) is a further development of the deficit irrigation technique. This
new technique is designed to let one part of the root system be exposed to soil drying, while the
other part is irrigated, in order to keep the leaves hydrated. The treatment is then reversed,
allowing the previously well-watered side of the root system to dry down while fully irrigating
the previously dry side (Dry et al., 2000). ARD (or partial root drying PRD) has been shown to
save substantial amounts of irrigated water, while simultaneously maintaining biomass and yield
in grapevine (Lovies et al., 2001), tomato (Stikic et al., 2003), and maize (Zhang & Shaozhong,
2002). The technique can have additional benefits by increasing the value of the crop, for
instance by early ripening (cotton, grapes), and producing a higher sugar content (grapes)
(Loveys et al., 2001), and labour costs may be reduced due to a reduced requirement for pruning.
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Recent research in Serbia (Stikic et al., 2004) has shown that ARD applied to pot-grown tomato
plants under cabinet conditions can improve WUE of fruit production by about 30%.
Even when crop yields are reduced by a DI strategy, the economic loss from the crop is
frequently exceeded by the value of the water saved (for domestic, agricultural or commercial
use elsewhere, or for recharging rivers, groundwater reserves, etc.).
The overall aim of this project is to increase the sustainability of water resources in the Western
Balkans, particularly for agriculture. Objectives can be classified into (a) to establish procedures
and policy advice for strategic management of water resources in WB, (b) to establish the
implications of using contaminated water sources for agriculture, environment and health, (c) to
improve WB agriculture through sustainable crop irrigation technologies, and (d) to establish
socio-economic implications of the research findings.
To achieve the above strategic objectives, procedures for strategic management of water will be
developed in parts of three contrasting river basins, two areas in Serbia and one in Macedonia. In
Serbia, one site is a drainage canal system through low-lying ground near Belgrade, where
animal farms cause eutrophication, and the second is a small river basin with undulating hills
near Belgrade, where detailed trials of crop irrigation methods will take place. In Macedonia, an
arid site, Ovce Pole, has been chosen as soils here do not drain freely and salinity is gradually
accumulating. For this reason, in addition to DI trials, the extremely drought and salt tolerant
crop quinoa will also be studied in Macedonia (Jacobsen et al., 2003).
To achieve the project objectives the workplan is divided into five workpackages, focusing on
different aspects of the work:
(a) Water quantity: collecting data on water availability and use, developing a
land/water/environment information system using GIS technologies and developing strategies
from models for managing water resources,
(b) Water quality: collecting data on water quality and studying implications for
ecotoxicology and health,
(c) Water use: studying plant and crop water use and responses to different irrigation
treatments, including DI and alternate root drying (ARD),
(d) Water economics: carrying out socio-economic analyses of water resource and crop
irrigation strategies,
(e) Water dissemination: developing outreach activities and ensuring effective output
dissemination to stakeholders.
References
Davies, W.J., Bacon, M.A., Thompson, D.S., Sobeigh, W., Rodriguez, L.G. (2000) J. Exp. Bot. 51: 1617-1626.
Dry, P.R., Loveys, B.R., During, H. (2000) Vitis 39: 3-7.
IPCC (1998) The Regional Impacts of Climate Change: An Assessment of Vulnerability. Cambridge, UK.
Jacobsen, S-E., Mujica, A., Jensen, C.R. (2003) The resistance of quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) to adverse
abiotic factors. Food Reviews International 19: 99-109.
Loveys, B., Grant, J., Dry, P., McCarthy, M. (2001) Progress in the development of partial rootzone drying. CSIRO,
Plant Industry, University of Adelaide, SARDI. http://www.geoflow.com/agriculture/prdi.htm.
Stikic, R., Popovic, S., Srdic, M., Savic, D., Jovanovic, Z., Prokic, Lj., Zdravkovic, J. (2003) In: Proc. European
Workshop on Environmental Stress and Sustainable Agriculture, Special Issue Bulg. J. Plant. Physiol. 164-171.
Vasilevski, G., Popovski, T., Nestorovski, Lj., Bosev, D. (2000) In: Proceedings of the Central and Eastern
European Workshop on Drought Mitigation (ed. by L. Vermes & A. Szemessy). 12-15 April, 2000, Budapest -
Felsogod, Hungary, pp 73-80.
Zhang, J. & Shaozhong (2002) In: Proceedings of 13th Congress of European Societies of Plant Physiology, 1-9
September, Crete. p 666.