Irrigation Demand Simulation and Crop Genotype Selection Over Large Geographies and Time Scales

A non-negligible amount of water is unsustainable, which is rising in a tendency. As the majority of water usage is for agriculture, irrigation optimization plays a key role in water sustainability. This paper produced a tool to simulate irrigation demand for large-scale geographies and time scales. Simulations were hold on 20 genotypes of a crop sunflower, 25 European farming regions and a time span from year 1951 to 2100. These results provide insights into the impact of farming regions and crop genotypes on irrigation, and into irrigation demand evolution for researching future water management. We propose a way of optimizing irrigation water usage by selecting crop genotypes and farming regions, whilst taking harvest yield constraints into consideration.