Abstract

INIGUEZ, Mauro; OJEDA-BUSTAMANTE, Waldo  and  DIAZ-DELGADO, Carlos. Hydro-Agricultural Infrastructure under Climate Change Scenarios. Tecnol. cienc. agua [online]. 2015, vol.6, n.5, pp.89-101. ISSN 2007-2422.

Large irrigation systems consist of a complex series of infrastructure to supply irrigation services. The flow of water, or the system flow, running through this infrastructure is a hydraulic variable required to satisfy water demand for crops. The majority of general ocean-atmospheric circulation models indicate warmer and dryer environments in most of Mexico, with significant effects on evapotranspiration of crops, a basic agronomic variable for determining the capacity of hydro-agricultural infrastructure. The present work presents the development of a methodology to evaluate the integrated evapotranspiration of crops in large irrigation areas containing diversified crop patterns with different planting dates and agricultural cycles. This serves as a basis to analyze the resulting changes in infrastructure given projected climate change scenarios assuming two possible agricultural adaptation actions. The Santa Rosa Irrigation Users Association is analyzed as a case study, located in "Rio Fuerte" Irrigation District 075, Sinaloa, Mexico. The results indicate an increase of 5% in the design flow capacity of large irrigation areas for the climate change adaptation measures analyzed for the middle of the century with an A1B emissions scenario. Likewise, an increase of 5% in the design capacity will also occur for small irrigation areas with and without adaptation measures. In terms of the annual volume requirement given the same A1B emissions scenario and the adaptation measurements studied, there would be an increase of 8.5%. It is concluded that the methodology developed can be applied to any irrigation district in Mexico to analyze the impact of climate change on irrigation infrastructure.

Keywords : Evapotranspiration; sizing irrigation canals; water requirements; global warming.

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