Sunflower Crop Irrigation in Autonomous Regions: Case of Hetao District; Inner Mongolia, China

Irrigation is a main factor for agricultural development, given the place occupied by agriculture and the weight of the food bill. Suitable researches on irrigation are necessary for this operation and for better water resources managements. . Hetao Irrigation District has uneven climate distribution and irregular basis water during the agricultural year. It faces major water shortage problem, low and irregular rainfall.  The Yellow River is the second largest River in China. The River basin is an area with severe water scarcity, with less than 500 m3 per capita per year, accounting for 81 % of the total water use, the head stream of the Yellow river basin becoming drier due to climate change.. The increased water abstraction for industrial, domestic and hydropower uses exacerbate water scarcity in the basin. Due to this water scarcity conditions the middle and low reaches of the river dried up 21 times during 1972-2008, with 226 days of no flow in 1997. The current research aims at providing an optimal irrigation scheduling to sunflower crop, by supplying the right amount of water at the right time, in order to increase crop yield and achieve 70% field efficiency. The results shows that, The water deficit vary between 2.8 mm/day to 3.09 mm/day from 2001 to 2008; crop water requirements between 247.4 mm and 392.7 mm and net irrigation water requirements between 300.8 to 459.3 mm Keywords: Reference evapotranspiration; ArcGIS, Cropwat; Optimal Irrigation Scheduling; Sunflower