Application of Cosmic-Ray Neutron Sensor Method to Calculate Field Water Use Efficiency

Abstract

Field water use efficiency is an important parameter for evaluating the quality of field irrigation in irrigated areas, which directly affects the country’s food security and water resource allocation. However, most current studies use point-scale soil moisture (SM) or remote sensing water balance models to calculate the field water use coefficient, which cannot avoid errors caused by the spatial heterogeneity of SM and insufficient spatial resolution of remote sensing data. Therefore, in this study, the cosmic-ray neutron sensor (CRNS), Time-Domain Reflectometers (TDR) and Automatic Weather Stations (AWS) were used to monitor the meteorological and hydrological data such as SM, atmospheric pressure, and precipitation in the experimental area of Jinghuiqu Irrigation District for three consecutive years. The scale of the CRNS SM lies between the point and the remote sensing. Based on the CRNS SM, the calculation method for canal head and tail water was used to calculate the field water use efficiency to evaluate the level of agricultural irrigation water use in the experimental irrigation area. The results showed that CRNS could accurately detect the change in SM, and four irrigation events were monitored during the winter wheat growth period from October 2018 to June 2019; the calculation result of field water use efficiency in the experimental area was 0.77. According to the field water use efficiency of the same irrigation area from October 2013 to October 2015 in other studies, the field water use efficiency during the growing period of winter wheat in this area increased from 0.503 to 0.770 in 2013–2019, indicating a significant improvement in the field water use level. In general, this study not only solves the problem of low calculation accuracy of field water use efficiency caused by the mismatch of SM monitoring scales but also explores the application potential of CRNS in agricultural irrigation management and water resource allocation.