Water management practice for maize production in Chinchimane, Zambezi region, Namibia
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Date
2024
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of Namibia
Abstract
Agriculture is the greatest water consumer in Namibia and the world at large, it is thus
necessary to know the water needs of the irrigated crops for better water management.
However, there is little scientific literature on crop water and irrigation requirements
in Namibia. Therefore, this study intended to contribute to the body of knowledge on
water needs for crops in general and maize in particular, since maize is a staple crop
in the selected study area. CROPWAT, a software which uses the Penman-Monteith
approach to compute reference evapotranspiration, crop water needs and irrigation
requirements, was employed in this study to estimate the water needs of maize in the
Chinchimane area of the Zambezi region. Subsequently, a maize irrigation schedule
was simulated in CROPWAT based on soil and long-term meteorological data. The
study found the minimum and maximum daily crop water requirements for irrigated
maize in the study area to be 1.74 mm and 7.49 mm, respectively. In contrast to the
seasonal crop water requirement, which was found to be 679.2 mm, the seasonal
irrigation requirement was found to be 628.8 mm. Furthermore, the study's estimates
of the water requirements for maize fall within the range of values that were reported
by some earlier studies in other locations. Additionally, the simulated maize irrigation
schedule suggested eight irrigation events in contrast to watering every day. This
study's findings can thus assist maize irrigators in Chinchimane to conserve water and
reduce unnecessary expenditure while still meeting agricultural water needs, because
knowing the water needs of irrigated crops and adhering to an optimized irrigation
schedule ensures that water resources are used sustainably, and irrigation water
demand is managed
Description
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of masters of science in water resources management
Keywords
CROPWAT, Penman-Monteith approach, Reference evapotranspiration, Crop water requirement, Irrigation requirement, Irrigation schedule