Search results for "Irrigation water"
showing 8 items of 8 documents
Irrigation water intensity and climate variability: an agricultural crops analysis of Italian regions
2020
This paper examines the relationship between the requirement of water resources for irrigation and climate variability and analyses the ranking of the best and worst performance of irrigation water intensity for each Italian region. To measure water resources demanded by agriculture, the irrigation water intensity (IWI) indicator has been computed as the ratio between volumes of irrigation water and total crop harvested. By applying panel data methodologies to a regional dataset spanning from 2000 to 2009, we may address heterogeneity and omitted variable issues. By merging meteo-climatic with agricultural variables, we may confirm that water precipitations, maximum temperature, irrigation …
Evaluation of viability PCR performance for assessing norovirus infectivity in fresh-cut vegetables and irrigation water
2016
Norovirus (NoV) detection in food and water is mainly carried out by quantitative RT-PCR (RT-qPCR). The inability to differentiate between infectious and inactivated viruses and the resulting overestimation of viral targets is considered a major disadvantage of RT-qPCR. Initially, conventional photoactivatable dyes (i.e. propidium monoazide, PMA and ethidium monoazide, EMA) and newly developed ones (i.e. PMAxx and PEMAX) were evaluated for the discrimination between infectious and thermally inactivated NoV genogroup I (GI) and II (GII) suspensions. Results showed that PMAxx was the best photoactivatable dye to assess NoV infectivity. This procedure was further optimized in artificially inoc…
Retrieval of evapotranspiration over the Alpilles/ReSeDA experimental site using airborne POLDER sensor and a thermal camera
2005
Abstract Knowledge of land surface evapotranspiration is of prime interest for environmental applications, such as optimizing irrigation water use, especially in arid and semiarid rangelands where water shortage is a critical problem. Numerous methods aiming at estimating evapotranspiration have been proposed in the literature. In the current paper, we assess the potential of the evaporative fraction based on the S-SEBI (Simplified Surface Energy Balance Index) concept for estimating instantaneous evapotranspiration, and extend this potential to the retrieval of daily evapotranspiration (ETd). To this end, a feasible and operational method is developed, which allows mapping instantaneous an…
Elimination of cyanobacteria and microcystins in irrigation water—effects of hydrogen peroxide treatment
2020
AbstractCyanobacterial blooms pose a risk to wild and domestic animals as well as humans due to the toxins they may produce. Humans may be subjected to cyanobacterial toxins through many routes, e.g., by consuming contaminated drinking water, fish, and crop plants or through recreational activities. In earlier studies, cyanobacterial cells have been shown to accumulate on leafy plants after spray irrigation with cyanobacteria-containing water, and microcystin (MC) has been detected in the plant root system after irrigation with MC-containing water. This paper reports a series of experiments where lysis of cyanobacteria in abstracted lake water was induced by the use of hydrogen peroxide and…
Measuring water-use in response to climate change: an analysis of the efficiency of Italian crop production system
2017
Official meteo-climatic statistics show the variability of weather conditions. Their effects on socioeconomic and natural environments should be analyzed in multi-dimensional studies. Among sectors, agriculture is expected to be the most sensitive as well as water resources availability. The aim of our analysis is to measure the performance of Italian regions in crop production by estimating both production technology - including a measure of irrigation water used as input - output elasticities and returns to scale and productive efficiency or technical efficiency where rainfalls and temperatures are proxies of CC conditions in the period 2000-2010 at Italian regional level, using the stoch…
Hepatitis E virus in lettuce and water samples: A method-comparison study
2017
The hepatitis E virus (HEV), which is an increasing cause of acute viral hepatitis in Europe, is a zoonotic virus that is mainly transmitted through contaminated water, consumption of raw or undercooked meat from pigs or wild boar, blood transfusion, and organ transplantation. Although the role of HEV transmission through contaminated produce has not been confirmed, the presence of HEV has been reported in irrigation waters and in vegetables. The present study used a World Health Organization (WHO) international standard and clinical samples to evaluate the performance characteristics of three RT-qPCR assays for detection and quantification of HEV. Two of the evaluated assays provided good …
Response to salinity stress of Rhizobium leguminosarum bv. viciae strains in the presence of different legume host plants
2011
We investigated the effect of residual salts from the previous summer’s irrigation on two non-irrigated cover crops—broad bean and common vetch—and on their rhizobial symbiontics. Before sowing, seeds were inoculated with a salt-tolerant strain and a salt-sensitive strain of Rhizobium leguminosarum biovar viciae. An increase in the electrical conductivity of the saturated-soil extract from 2.0 dS m−1 to 6.0 dS m−1 caused a severe reduction of broad bean biomass, while growth of common vetch was almost unaffected by the salinity level. Our results clearly indicate that common vetch as a cover crop may increase the availability of nitrogen in soil more than broad bean also in saline environme…
Optimizing subsurface dripline installation depth with Hydrus 2D/3D to improve irrigation water use efficiency in the central Tunisia
2015
The main objective of the work is to optimize drip installation depth for Eggplant crop irrigated with surface or subsurface drip irrigation systems to improve irrigation Water Use Effeciency (WUE), by means of field measurements and simulations carried out with Hydrus-2D model. Initially, a comparison between simulated Soil Water Contents (SWC) and the corresponding measured in two plots, in which laterals with coextruded emitters are laid on the soil surface (T0) and at 20 cm depth (T20), respectively. In order to choose the best position of the lateral, the results of different simulation run, carried out by choosing a deeper installation (T45) depth. Simulated SWC’s resulted fairly clos…