Despite in Mediterranean environment water resources for irrigation are limited, water management
for agriculture is often practiced ignoring principles of environmental sustainability.
Objective of the paper is to asses the possibility of using agro-hydrological models for irrigation scheduling, in
order to optimize the water use efficiency.
The results of a comparison between the numerical SWAP model and the functional model proposed by
FAO to estimate water requirements in two typical arboreal Mediterranean Crops (grapevine and olive) are
showed.
In the initial phase of the research, involving both irrigation seasons 2005 and 2006, after a preliminary
analysis of soil hydraulic and biophysical plant parameters, two intensive field measurements campaigns
were carried out to measure the soil water content at different depths, to proceed to the validation of both the
models.
Validation of the model was carried out by means of the comparison between measured and predicted soil
water content.
Finally different irrigation scheduling options were examined, in order to compare the scheduled irrigation
times with those planned by the farmers.
The results of investigations evidenced that FAO model simulates reliably the values of average water content
of the soil profile, even if a certain overestimation of evapotranspiration fluxes can be observed with the FAO
56 model compared with SWAP. Consequently, the FAO model anticipates the starting date for irrigation
obtained with SWAP, but, in terms of seasonal water requirements, the estimates determined by the two
modes did not result significantly different