Bridging rigorous assessment of water availability from field to catchment scale with a parsimonious agro-hydrological model

This research was funded by the Research Foundation Flanders. We are grateful to Stien Keunen for helping to test and develop the AquaCrop-Hydro model. Moreover, we would like to thank Mattias Van Opstal, Toon Kerkhofs and Stefaan Dondeyne for their help with data collection. Furthermore, we are grateful for data and information that were provided by the Federal Public Service Economy (FOD economie), the Flemish Environment Agency (VMM), the Flemish Land Agency (VLM) and the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium (KMI).While simple crop and hydrological models are limited with respect to the number and accuracy of the processes they incorporate, complex models have high demand for data. Due to the limitations of both categories of models, there is a need for new agro-hydrological models that simulate both crop productivity and water availability in agricultural catchments, with low data and calibration requirements. This study aimed at developing a widely applicable parsimonious agro-hydrological model, AquaCrop-Hydro, which couples the AquaCrop crop water productivity model with a conceptual hydrological model. AquaCrop-Hydro, simulating crop productivity, the daily soil water balance and discharge at the catchment outlet, performed well for an agricultural catchment in Belgium. The model can be used to investigate the effect of agricultural management and environmental changes from field to catchment scale in support of sustainable water management in agricultural areas.status: publishe