OPERA-Operationalizing the increase of water use efficiency and resilience in irrigation

Agriculture is confronted with changing weather patterns. For farmers this implies higher risks related to crop growth and field work conditions. Adequate, timely and spatially differentiated measurements of soil moisture become more important for farmers to make decisions on if, when and how to irrigate. The project will focus on combatting water shortage at the farm scale and territory level by developing applicable service models for decision support in irrigation. Worldwide significant progress has been made to utilize precision irrigation as means to increase water use efficiency (more crop per drop) or decrease water foot print in irrigated agriculture. More

Main outputs

  • Hernandez-Santana, V., Fernandes, R.M.D., Perez-Arcoiza, A., Fernández, J.E., García, J.M., Diaz-Espejo, A., Relationships between fruit growth and oil accumulation with simulated seasonal dynamics of leaf gas exchange in the olive tree. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 2018, 256, 458-469.
  • Fernandes, R.D.M., Cuevas, M.V., Diaz-Espejo, A., Hernandez-Santana, V. 2018. Effects of water stress on fruit growth and water relations between fruits and leaves in a hedgerow olive orchard. Agricultural Water Management 210: 32-40.
  • Labędzki, L.; Ostrowski, J. Precipitation Preventing a Deficit of Readily Available Soil Water in Arable Soils in Poland. Atmosphere 2018, 9, 121. www.mdpi.com/journal/atmosphere.
  • Dalla Marta, A., G.B. Chirico, S.F. Bolognesi, M. Mancini, G. D’Urso, S. Orlandini, C. De Michele and F. Altobelli. 2019. Integrating Sentinel-2 Imagery with AquaCrop for Dynamic Assessment of Tomato Water Requirements in Southern Italy. Agronomy 9, 404; doi:10.3390/agronomy9070404.
  • Rodriguez-Dominguez C.M., Hernandez-Santana V., Buckley T.N., Fernández J.E., Diaz-Espejo. 2019. Sensitivity of leaf turgor to air vapour pressure deficit correlates with maximum stomatal conductance. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 272-273: 156-165.
  • Diaz-Espejo A, Jose E. Fernández, Jose M. Torres-Ruiz, Celia M. Rodriguez-Dominguez, Alfonso Perez-Martin, Virginia Hernandez-Santana. 2018. The Olive Tree Under Water Stress: Fitting the Pieces of Response Mechanisms in the Crop Performance Puzzle. WATER SCARCITY AND SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE IN SEMIARID ENVIRONMENT. Tools, Strategies, and Challenges for Woody Crops. Edited by Iván F. Garcia Tejero & Hugo Durán-Zuazo. Ed. Academic Press, pp. 589.
  • Fernández, José E., Diaz-Espejo A, Rafael Romero, Virginia Hernandez-Santana, José M. García, Carmen M. PadillaDíaz, María V. Cuevas. 2018. Precision Irrigation in Olive (Olea europaea L.) Tree Orchards. WATER SCARCITY AND SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE IN SEMIARID ENVIRONMENT. Tools, Strategies, and Challenges for Woody Crops. Edited by Iván F. Garcia-Tejero & Hugo Durán-Zuazo. Ed. Academic Press, pp. 589

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Project coordinator Marius Heinen
Last Updated October 18, 2022, 08:52 (UTC)
Created November 21, 2018, 10:00 (UTC)
Acronym OPERA
Contact person for Dissemination activities Marius Heinen
Funders Several
Project partners evenor-tech-slu-parque-Scientific;institut-national-de-la-recherche-inra;institute-of-technology-and-life-sciences-itp;-ouncil-for-agricultural-research-and-economics-crea;y-tecnologico-cartuja
Access level info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Project identifier grantAgreement/EC/
Start date April 1, 2017, 00:00 (UTC)
End date unknown