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1. Sustainable irrigation and climate feedbacks

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00821-x  

   Yang, Yi; Jin, Zhenong; Mueller, Nathaniel D.; Driscoll, Avery W.; Hernandez, Rebecca R.; Grodsky, Steven M.; Sloat, Lindsey L.; Chester, Mikhail V.; Zhu, Yong-Guan; Lobell, David B. (August 2023, Nature Food)
2. A Variable Rate Drip Irrigation Prototype for Precision Irrigation

   https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy11122493  

   AL-agele, Hadi A.; Jashami, Hisham; Nackley, Lloyd; Higgins, Chad (December 2021, Agronomy)

   A new Variable Rate Drip Irrigation (VRDI) emitter that monitors individual water drops was designed, built, and tested. This new emitter controllers water application directly by monitoring the volume applied in contrast to uniform drip irrigation systems that control water application indirectly by pressure compensation and operational times. Prior approaches assumed irrigation volumes based on flow rates and time and typically did not verify the applied amount of water applied at each water outlet. The new VRDI emitter self-monitors the total volume of water applied and halts the flow once the desired total water application has been achieved. This study performed a test for a new VRDI emitter design with two inner diameters of 0.11 cm and 0.12 cm and two outer diameters 0.3 cm and 0.35 cm compared to a commercial drip emitter. Laboratory tests verify that the integrated volume measurements of the VRDI system are independent of pressure. Conversely, the flow rates of the commercial pressure-compensated drip lines were not independent of pressure. These results demonstrate that this form of VRDI is technically feasible and is shown to be energy efficient, requiring lower system operating pressures than pressure-compensated lines. The VRDI system can reduce water consumption and related water costs. 

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3. Greenhouse gas emissions from US irrigation pumping and implications for climate-smart irrigation policy

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-44920-0  

   Driscoll, Avery W; Conant, Richard T; Marston, Landon T; Choi, Eunkyoung; Mueller, Nathaniel D (December 2024, Nature Communications)

   Irrigation reduces crop vulnerability to drought and heat stress and thus is a promising climate change adaptation strategy. However, irrigation also produces greenhouse gas emissions through pump energy use. To assess potential conflicts between adaptive irrigation expansion and agricultural emissions mitigation efforts, we calculated county-level emissions from irrigation energy use in the US using fuel expenditures, prices, and emissions factors. Irrigation pump energy use produced 12.6 million metric tonnes CO2-e in the US in 2018 (90% CI: 10.4, 15.0), predominantly attributable to groundwater pumping. Groundwater reliance, irrigated area extent, water demand, fuel choice, and electrical grid emissions intensity drove spatial heterogeneity in emissions. Due to heavy reliance on electrical pumps, projected reductions in electrical grid emissions intensity are estimated to reduce pumping emissions by 46% by 2050, with further reductions possible through pump electrification. Quantification of irrigation-related emissions will enable targeted emissions reduction efforts and climate-smart irrigation expansion. 

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4. Irrigation in the Earth system

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-023-00438-5  

   McDermid, Sonali; Nocco, Mallika; Lawston-Parker, Patricia; Keune, Jessica; Pokhrel, Yadu; Jain, Meha; Jägermeyr, Jonas; Brocca, Luca; Massari, Christian; Jones, Andrew D.; et al (January 2023, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment)
5. Chronic fertilization and irrigation gradually and increasingly restructure grassland communities

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2625  

   Kimmel, Kaitlin; Dee, Laura; Tilman, David; Aubin, Isabelle; Boenisch, Gerhard; Catford, Jane A.; Kattge, Jens; Isbell, Forest (March 2019, Ecosphere)

   Abstract Scientists have known for over a century that resource addition can lead to species loss from plant communities. Recent studies have also shown that resource addition can substantially restructure communities by altering their functional and taxonomic composition—even when species richness remains unchanged. Understanding which aspects of community structure are impacted by different resources and over which timescales will provide insight for management decisions and may also elucidate which measures can act as early warning indicators for subsequent changes in the community. Here, we take advantage of a long‐term factorial experiment to understand how grassland plant communities respond to a decade of nitrogen fertilization (14 g N·m⁻²·yr⁻¹) and irrigation (25 mm water/week during the growing season). After 10 yr, fertilization and irrigation decreased species richness by 22% and 9%, while functional richness decreased by 31% and 41%. Abundance‐weighted functional distance between treatments and controls increased by 55% and 24%, respectively. We expected that abundance‐weighted measures would shift before presence–absence‐based measures, but found limited evidence for this. Instead, our results suggest that species gains, which can occur quickly because they require the addition of only one individual, may serve as early indicators for subsequent community restructuring in the opposite direction. Overall, both chronic nitrogen fertilization and irrigation tended to have gradual and increasing impacts on community structure, but the magnitude of these effects varied greatly depending on the aspect of community structure investigated. Further study will be needed to determine the extent to which our results can be generalized to other resources or sites in order to develop management strategies to maintain both taxonomic and functional trait diversity in the face of chronic resource changes. 

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