Sustainable water resources management in an agricultural environment

Poitou-Charentes is a region in Western France where agriculture is a major activity. Irrigation water is supplied from groundwater and surface water and amounts up to 90% of the whole demand. Water supply to all users has led to overexploitation the resources. Sustainable conjunctive management is at present a crucial need and aims at the following main objectives: to maintain the crop production; and to preserve water resources. To this end, an experimental four year study (1993-1996) has been carried out in river Charente basin. Water resources were assessed with the use of numerical modeling (Modflow(TM)). Irrigation demands were controlled in real-time with the use of software (Irritel(TM)) which computes a daily soil water budget. Experimental corn sowed sites were selected, in which non-controlled and controlled irrigation were performed. The final results are very encouraging and reveal that water resources problems can be solved through proper conjunctive management.