Assessing water consumption of banana: traditional versus modelling approach

This study also aimed at evaluating the performance of the SWAP-model under very different circumstances as for which it has been used previously. The uncertainty about the parameters of the SWAP model remained rather high. The most important drawback of SWAP is the enormous amount of data that is required. Since these data were not always available, this resulted in a large amount of parameters to be estimated and involved in the sensitivity analyses and calibration process. The final simulation results showed several inconsistencies. It seemed that, for successful predictions, more data were needed to describe the bottom boundary condition (BBC) of the considered soil profile in greater detail, especially when there is influence of groundwater. This BBC has indeed a great impact on the simulation results. SWAP offers several 'simplified' approaches concerning the BBC in case no data are available. However, in all cases SWAP seemed to overestimate the moisture content.