Rainwater harvesting and tomato irrigation schemes optimization for facilities agriculture

Abstract: A rainwater harvesting has been widely used to collect and store the rainwater into natural reservoirs or tanks for later purposes, further to balance between water supply and demand in recent years. In this study, a systematic optimization was conducted on rainwater harvesting for tomato irrigation. A protected agricultural plot was also chosen as the study area in the Wuqing District, Tianjin of China. A storage tank was then built with a volume of 200 m3. A rainwater harvesting rate was calculated, according to six rainfall events in 2020 and the runoff from the surfaces of seven greenhouses. At the same time, the data set on tomato irrigation in the greenhouses was collected for the crop models. An irrigation scheme was first optimized for the tomatoes in the greenhouses using the improved Penman-Monteith formula and AquaCrop model. Then, three schemes of rainwater harvesting and irrigation were established, including the actual rainwater harvesting with the actual irrigation scheme, the actual rainwater harvesting with the optimized irrigation scheme, and the improved rainwater harvesting with the optimized irrigation scheme. Finally, the water balance was applied to calculate the rainwater retention rate, groundwater replacement rate, and water supply guarantee rate in the rainwater harvesting system for different schemes in a wet, normal, and dry year. Optimal storage was thus achieved after the comprehensive analysis of reliability indexes. The results showed that the rainwater harvesting rate of the project in the study area was about 57%, indicating much potential for improvement. The optimized irrigation scheme for the tomatoes saved 23.6 m3 of water, but the yield decreased by 5.5%, compared with the actual. Furthermore, the water use and irrigation efficiency increased by 7.2% and 39%, respectively, indicating that the optimized scheme effectively saved the water while holding the crop yield. Besides, the rainwater interception rate, groundwater replacement rate, and probability of water supply increased as the volume of storage tank increased. There was no change in the groundwater replacement rate and the probability of water supply when the storage tank volume reached the optimum volume. Additionally, the magnitude of the rainwater interception rate increased with the decrease of the precipitation. More importantly, the total annual water supply was 356.3 m3 in the existing project, where the rainwater interception rate, groundwater replacement rate, and probability of water supply were 35.78%, 68.78%, and 65.48%, respectively. Correspondingly, there was also an urgent need to improve rainwater harvesting and irrigation schemes. Specifically, the average volume of the rainwater storage tank was saved 64 m3 for the higher reuse, while the lower construction costs in Scheme 2, compared with Scheme 1. Similarly, Schemes 3 saved 10 m3 average volume of the rainwater storage tank, compared with Scheme 2. Moreover, the optimal volumes of the storage tank in each scheme were 362, 298, and 288 m3, respectively. Consequently, improved rainwater harvesting and irrigation schemes were achieved to optimize the rainwater tank, thereby reducing the consumption of irrigation water for a higher rainwater collection rate. This finding can also provide a strong reference to guide the construction of agricultural rainwater harvesting and storage projects, as well as the promotion of non-conventional water use in sustainable agriculture.