Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Techniques and Applications for Sustainable Water Resources Management in Agriculture

A special issue of Hydrology (ISSN 2306-5338). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Resources and Risk Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 22 November 2025 | Viewed by 1696

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Engineering, University of Messina, Villaggio Sant’Agata, 98166 Messina, Italy
Interests: hydrology; water resources management; groundwater; drought; floods; climate change
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Guest Editor
Department of Sciences, Technologies and Society, University School for Advanced Studies of Pavia, 27100 Pavia, Italy
Interests: drought; crop models; crop vulnerability functions; crop water needs; spatial analysis;climate change

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Guest Editor
College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200070, China
Interests: hydrologic and water quality modeling; watershed hydrology; machine learning model; environmental modeling with GIS; stormwater management; urban non-point source pollution control
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue addresses the critical role of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in tackling water resource challenges within agriculture. With the growing pressure on freshwater supplies in a climate change context, GIS emerges as a game-changer for hydrologists and water managers.

Articles within this Special Issue will showcase how GIS empowers experts to achieve the following:

  • Map Hydrologic Dynamics: GIS integrates diverse data layers, such as precipitation gauges, well records, soil moisture levels, and remote-sensed data, to create detailed maps of surface and groundwater resources. This spatial understanding empowers hydrologists to model water flow patterns and identify areas of potential scarcity or overexploitation.
  • Optimize Irrigation Networks: By analyzing soil types, crop water needs, and field boundaries within a GIS framework, water managers can design efficient irrigation systems that deliver water precisely where and when needed to minimize water losses and maximize crop yields, particularly in drought-prone regions.
  • Avoid Water Pollution: Integrating water quality data with land use information allows for the identification of potential contamination sources, such as fertilizer runoff. This empowers proactive management practices to safeguard water resources and prevent agricultural pollution.
  • Predict and Mitigate Water Extremes: Advanced GIS models, incorporating historical data and weather forecasts, can predict droughts or floods, thus allowing for the implementation of proactive water management strategies, such as reservoir storage optimization during wet seasons or early warning systems for drought preparedness.

This Special Issue highlights how GIS empowers hydrologists and water managers to address complex water resource issues in agriculture. By harnessing the power of spatial data analysis, stakeholders can ensure the sustainable use of water resources, promote crop productivity, and safeguard the future of agriculture in a water-scarce world. Papers proposing innovative GIS techniques used to address the aforementioned topics and articles dealing with the application of GIS techniques to specific case studies are welcome.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Dr. Iolanda Borzì
Dr. Beatrice Monteleone
Prof. Dr. Hailong Yin
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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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. Hydrology is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 1800 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.

Keywords

  • agricultural water mapping
  • sustainable water management
  • crop water needs
  • agricultural water allocation
  • mapping hydrological extremes in agriculture
  • irrigation planning
  • water pollution mapping

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

29 pages, 8879 KiB  
Article
An Integrated Approach to the Regional Estimation of Soil Moisture
by Luis Pastor Sánchez-Fernández, Diego Alberto Flores-Carrillo and Luis Alejandro Sánchez-Pérez
Hydrology 2024, 11(10), 170; https://doi.org/10.3390/hydrology11100170 - 11 Oct 2024
Viewed by 1159
Abstract
Automatic or smart irrigation systems benefit irrigation water management. However, measurement sensor networks in automatic irrigation systems are complex, and maintenance is essential. Regional soil moisture estimation avoids the multiple measurements necessary when deploying an irrigation system. In this sense, a fuzzy estimation [...] Read more.
Automatic or smart irrigation systems benefit irrigation water management. However, measurement sensor networks in automatic irrigation systems are complex, and maintenance is essential. Regional soil moisture estimation avoids the multiple measurements necessary when deploying an irrigation system. In this sense, a fuzzy estimation approach based on decision-making (FEADM) has been used to obtain soil moisture point estimates. However, FEADM requires intelligent weather adjustment based on spatial features (IWeCASF) to perform regional soil moisture estimation. The IWeCASF-FEADM integrated approach for regional soil moisture estimation is developed in this work. IWeCASF provides the inputs for FEADM. FEADM is performed R times; R is the number of checkpoints at which a point estimate is obtained. In this way, regional estimation is achieved when the set of R soil moisture point estimates is completed. Additionally, IWeCASF-FEADM considers the irrigation water records, which are not included in either method individually. This method can detect when the soil moisture is deficient in a region, allowing actions to prevent water stress. This regional estimation reduces an irrigation system’s operational and maintenance complexity. This integrated approach has been tested over several years by comparing the results of regional soil moisture estimation with measurements obtained at many points in the study region. Full article
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