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Agricultural Water and Land Resources Planning and Management: Challenges and Endeavors

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water Resources Management, Policy and Governance".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 August 2025 | Viewed by 496

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
School of Geoscience and Technology, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, China
Interests: agricultural water and land management; water use efficiency; land use change; climate change impacts; water–land–food–carbon nexus
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Guest Editor
School of Geoscience and Technology, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, China
Interests: water and land management; land use change; climate change; urban land expansion

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Co-Guest Editor
College of Hydraulic Science and Engineering, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China
Interests: agricultural water management; drought stress; agricultural adaptation measures under climate change

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Water and land resources are two of the most vital resources in agricultural and food production systems. However, the increasing demands for water and land resources due to population growth and economic development, coupled with unreasonable utilization structure, uneven distribution, and spatial mismatch between water and land resources, make agricultural water and land resources under unprecedented pressure. Global climate change and land use change pose more serious challenges to planning and management of agricultural water and land resources.

This Special Issue seeks discussions and review works on the current conditions and evaluation of agricultural water and land resources regionally and globally, major issues and challenges, and also research reports addressing and evaluating the effects of some environmental stressors (e.g., water scarcity issues, land resources degradation, and cultivated land that is occupied) on agricultural water and land resource utilization (including blue water and green water), as well as the endeavors and measures of stakeholders and scientists in the effective utilization, planning, and management of agricultural water and land resources. Works on agricultural water and land resource management based on the water–energy–food or water–land–food nexuses are also welcomed.

Dr. Qingling Geng
Prof. Dr. Zhihui Tian
Dr. Lijie Shi
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • water resources
  • land resources
  • agricultural water use
  • water and land resource matching
  • agricultural water and land resource management
  • optimal allocation
  • climate change
  • sustainable management
  • resource carrying capacity

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 3185 KiB  
Article
Daily Water Requirements of Vegetation in the Urban Green Spaces in the City of Panaji, India
by Manish Ramaiah and Ram Avtar
Water 2025, 17(10), 1487; https://doi.org/10.3390/w17101487 - 15 May 2025
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Abstract
From the urban sustainability perspective and from the steps essential for regulating/balancing the microclimate features, the creation and maintenance of urban green spaces (UGS) are vital. The UGS include vegetation of any kind in urban areas such as parks, gardens, vertical gardens, trees, [...] Read more.
From the urban sustainability perspective and from the steps essential for regulating/balancing the microclimate features, the creation and maintenance of urban green spaces (UGS) are vital. The UGS include vegetation of any kind in urban areas such as parks, gardens, vertical gardens, trees, hedge plants, and roadside plants. This “urban green infrastructure” is a cost-effective and energy-saving means for ensuring sustainable development. The relationship between urban landscape patterns and microclimate needs to be sufficiently understood to make urban living ecologically, economically, and ergonomically justifiable. In this regard, information on diverse patterns of land use intensity or spatial growth is essential to delineate both beneficial and adverse impacts on the urban environment. With this background, the present study aimed to address water requirements of UGS plants and trees during the non-rainy months from Panaji city (Koppen classification: Am) situated on the west coast of India, which receives over 2750 mm of rainfall, almost exclusively during June–September. During the remaining eight months, irrigating the plants in the UGS becomes a serious necessity. In this regard, the daily water requirements (DWR) of 34 tree species, several species of hedge plants, and lawn areas were estimated using standard methods that included primary (field survey-based) and secondary (inputs from key-informant survey questionnaires) data collection to address water requirement of the UGS vegetation. Monthly evapotranspiration rates (ETo) were derived in this study and were used for calculating the water requirement of the UGS. The day–night average ETo was over 8 mm, which means that there appears to be an imminent water stress in most UGS of the city in particular during the January–May period. The DWR in seven gardens of Panaji city were ~25 L/tree, 6.77 L/m2 hedge plants, and 4.57 L/m2 groundcover (=lawns). The water requirements for the entire UGS in Panaji city were calculated. Using this information, the estimated total daily volume of water required for the entire UGS of 1.86 km2 in Panaji city is 7.10 million liters. The current supply from borewells of 64,200 L vis a vis means that the ETo-based DWR of 184,086 L is at a shortage of over 2.88 times and is far inadequate for meeting the daily demand of hedge plants and lawn/groundcover. Full article
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22 pages, 4844 KiB  
Article
Spatio-Temporal Changes of Terrestrial Water Storage in Five Provinces of Northwest China from 2002 to 2022 and Their Driving Factors
by Aimin Li, Zekun Wu, Meng Yin and Zhenqiang Guo
Water 2025, 17(10), 1417; https://doi.org/10.3390/w17101417 - 8 May 2025
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Abstract
This study aims to explore the spatio-temporal changes in terrestrial water storage (TWS) in the five provinces of Northwest China and to assess the influences of various driving factors on the changes in TWS. Based on the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) [...] Read more.
This study aims to explore the spatio-temporal changes in terrestrial water storage (TWS) in the five provinces of Northwest China and to assess the influences of various driving factors on the changes in TWS. Based on the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite data of the five provinces from April 2002 to December 2022, combined with datasets of various driving factors (precipitation, evapotranspiration, runoff, and anthropogenic water use) from 1980 to 2022, a trend analysis was conducted using Sen’s slope method and Mann–Kendall (M-K) tests to characterize the spatial–temporal changes in TWS. The water balance method and quantification of contribution rates were used to analyze the spatio-temporal response of the change in TWS to driving factors and the contributions of driving factors thereto. The results showed that the eastern part of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and the northern parts of Shaanxi Province and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region belonged to the decreasing centers of TWS, while the northern part of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau belonged to the enriching center of TWS, with a decreasing trend at a rate of 2.86 mm/yr. Precipitation contributed positively to the change in TWS and had a high spatio-temporal response, while the other driving factors (evapotranspiration, runoff, and anthropogenic water use) all contributed negatively to certain extents. The contribution rates of precipitation, evapotranspiration, runoff, and anthropogenic water use were 0.363, −0.265, −0.258 and −0.115, respectively. The results are helpful for the scientific planning and management of water resources in Northwest China. Full article
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