Water Management Practices Based on Crop Oriented Approach for Facing Water Scarcity in Palestine

Abstract

The use of water for agricultural production in water scarcity regions requires innovative and sustainable research, and an appropriate transfer of technologies. This paper discuss some of these aspects, mainly relative to on-farm irrigation management including the use of water management practices that can enhance water efficiency, gaining an economic advantage from water unit. In some cases, the necessary knowledge has been provided against several crops and efficient water needs, helping farmers to adapt and implement viable solutions for water scarcity and profitability, thus gaining more benefits from irrigation management. Different scenarios were illustrated in this study to improve irrigation water productivity, water revenue and nutritional value of different strategic crops cultivated in open field (lentil, potato, wheat, olive and dates), and those cultivated under greenhouse conditions (tomatoes, cucumber, eggplants, green beans, sweet pepper). This study indicated that, when farmers use one cubic meter of water in producing different crops cultivated in open field, the higher productivity was indicated for potatoes and olive crops, while for the crops cultivated under greenhouse conditions, the higher productivity was gained for tomatoes then cucumber crops compared to the other investigated crops. Moreover, the highest nutrition revenue from protein by using one cubic meter of water was indicated for lentil and wheat crops comparing to the other investigated crops. Concerning the economic revenue, the highest revenue from one cubic meter of water for open field crops was gained from olive then dates crops, while for protected crops the highest revenue was gained from tomatoes then cucumber crops compared to the other investigated crops. This indicated several polices and scenarios for management of available water demand for facing water scarcity in Palestine. These scenarios aiming in maximizing water productivity, as well as, water profitability from the same unit of water, by selecting a suitable cropping patterns for optimizing crop water use efficiency, maximizing economic water productivity and improving nutritional water productivity. On this basis, more water-efficient management could combine wider productivity benefits with economic advantage for farmers.