Spatial variability of soil moisture regimes at different scales: implications in the context of precision agriculture.

Abstract

Precision agriculture is based on the concept of soil-specific management, which aims to adapt management within a field according to specific site conditions in order to maximize production and minimize environmental damage. This paper examines how the nature and sources of variation in soil moisture regimes affect our ability to simulate soil water behaviour within a field with adequate precision in order to advise optimal soil-specific management. Field examples of variation in soil moisture regimes are described to illustrate the difficulties involved. A discussion identifies three main points. First, it is recognized that the current modelling approaches to soil moisture regimes do not sufficiently account for local heterogeneities in soil and crop characteristics such as soil morphology and rooting patterns. Second, the estimation of within-field variation of soil hydraulic properties is difficult because of large short-range variation of the properties and general lack of observed data; one way to overcome this problem is to seek new measurement techniques or to find easy-to-measure auxiliary variables spatially correlated to the variables of interest. Last, as pollution impacts often become noticeable to society at scales larger than the scale of agricultural management, hydrological modelling can serve for linking both scales and advising agricultural practices that minimize undesirable pollution effects.