Modelling for water supply of irrigated cropping systems on climate change

The vulnerability of Mediterranean environment due to climatic changes makes necessary to define the effects of the increase of CO2 atmospheric concentration and the consequent alterations of temperature and precipitation variations upon the processes which regulate the plants’ water supply. The traditional research can not meet the needs of this information because of the difficulty of carrying out the experiments. Therefore, it is necessary to use models based upon mathematical representation of the processes and interactions between climatic scenarios, plant and soil, with which to simulate different agronomic situations. The integration of global circulation models with water balance models is a valid tool for studying the influence of climatic changes on water supply. This study took into account the influence of climatic changes on water supply of poly-annual (artichoke and asparagus) and annual (potato and broccoli) crops with the CRITERIA simulation model of water balance. The simulations were performed with two future climate scenarios (A2 and B1). The results of the simulations highlight how the A2 scenario gives a greater influence on cycle length of crops which develop in summer time determining a reduction of crop cycle from 15 to 20% compared to the observed data, and so, as a consequence in the future, the crops with a summer crop cycle will be subjected to reductions of water supply up to 25%.