Water Saving in Irrigated Agriculture

Irrigated agriculture is the main user of the world’s water. Agricultural adaptation to global changes and water scarcity requires new technical and management solutions to be applied to production systems. Examples of such adaptations include the improvement of agronomic practices relative to crop and soil management, irrigation scheduling methods, on-farm irrigation systems, water supply management for water conservation, and off-farm delivery systems. This issue is emerging due to the adverse impacts of global and climatic changes threatening to reduce the water available for agriculture and all dependent ecosystem services, particularly in dryer areas.

This Special Issue will focus on recent developments in agronomy and agricultural water management—namely, the problem of water saving and conservation in irrigated agriculture, as well as the safe use of recycled water. Reviewing these developments will help to clarify some current questions and point out feasible solutions for specific real problems, particularly in water scarcity contexts.

Submissions on the following topics are encouraged: (1) crop management, referring to the selection of low-demand crop varieties or crop patterns, and the adoption of deficit irrigation; (2) soil water management, including the increase in soil water retention and storage, the control of soil evaporation, and water harvesting; (3) irrigation system management, referring to the application of irrigation scheduling techniques and tools and the reduction in water demand through the improvement of irrigation systems, including emerging themes such as automation, remote sensing, and precision irrigation; (4) water saving practices in rice production; (5) supply management, including the improvement of storage capacity, improvements in conveyance and delivery scheduling, and the development and management of irrigation schemes; (6) drainage management, including salinization and health risks; (7) the use of non-conventional water for irrigation, including treated waste water, desalinated water, and irrigation water reuse.

Dr. Jose Manuel Gonçalves
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.