Forecast evapotranspiration: fundamental information for agricultural irrigation management


Webinar | July 23, 2019 – h. 12:00 pm CEST


Speaker: Richard Snyder, University of California-Davis, USA
Introduction by: Donatella Spano, University of Sassari and Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change
Moderator: Serena Marras, Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change Foundation – IAFES Division


Climate change projections indicate that precipitation depths are likely to decrease in regions where agriculture needs irrigation, which will further exacerbate existing problems with limited water resources.  Knowing evapotranspiration (ET) rates of agricultural crops is especially important in these semi-arid and arid climates where supplemental or full irrigation is often needed to produce a crop.  Forty years ago, there was limited availability of ET information to help growers determine water requirements and there was little interest by growers, who mainly used surface irrigation methods, to access available information.  Because water resources have decreased relative to the water demand due to climate and agricultural and urban expansion, there is a clear change from surface irrigation to micro-sprinkler and drip irrigation systems.   With low-volume irrigation systems, a big problem is that farmers need forecast estimates of ET to order the needed water and plan for the timing and amount of water to apply during the next week.  This led to development of a forecast ET product (FRET)  by the USA National Weather Service Sacramento Office and the University of California at Davis.  Initially, the standardized reference evapotranspiration for short canopies (ETo) equation from the ASCE-EWRI was slightly modified to use available daily forecast products to calculate and distribute ETo information within the Sacramento forecast area.  Since then, the forecast service has expanded to include the entire USA (excluding Alaska and Hawaii).  It is now possible to obtain a seven-day forecast of ETo at any location, and growers can estimate energy-limited crop ET (ETc) as the product of ETo and crop coefficient (Kc) values distributed by UC and other sources.  Growers are now starting to use FRET to improve application efficiency, reduce water applications, and save energy.  In this Webinar, we will discuss the forecast ET (FRET) product, why it is important for agriculture and urban landscapes, and how it works.

Agenda
12:00 pm – Welcome and introduction – Serena Marras, CMCC – IAFES Division
12:05 pm – Setting the scene   – Donatella Spano – University of Sassari and CMCC Foundation
12:15 pm –  What is needed? – Richard Snyder – University of California-Davis,USA
12:45pm – Q&A session
13:00 pm – Closing Remarks

Working language: English

Bio
Richard L. Snyderv, Extension Biometeorologist – Emeritus
Cooperative Extension& Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California, Davis
MS (1978) & PhD (1980)in Agricultural Climatology Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
UCD-UCANR Biometeorology Specialist 1980-2015
Research and teaching activities include: (1) measuring and estimating evapotranspiration, (2) frost protection of crops, (3) agricultural and urban irrigation scheduling, and (4) water resources planning. Major accomplishments include: (1) principal investigator on the California Irrigation Management Information System (CIMIS) research and development project, (2) co-wrote the SIMETAW, Cal-SIMETAW, and CUP+ programs for use in the California Water Plan, (3) co-author of the UN_FAO book: “Frost Protection: fundamentals, practice, and economics”. Authored or co-authored 168 refereed papers on a range of topics including: evapotranspiration, irrigation scheduling, frost protection, meteorological measurements, wildfire, soils, crop phenology, and climate change. Service Activities include: ASCE-EWRI: Past Chair: EWRI Task Committee on Crop Coefficients and ISHS: Past Chair: ISHS Commission on Irrigation and Plant Water Relations.


How to partecipate
The seminar will be broadcasted via Go-to-Webinar. Please, click on the following link for registration:

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7031080391508328707

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.


Organizer
Fondazione CMCC – Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici



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