Maize is a crop that plays a fundamental role in global food security, particularly in tropical and subtropical regions. However, drought stress remains one of the major constraints that limit maize production worldwide. Maize sensitivity to water deficit is especially critical during the flowering stage, often resulting in substantial yield losses. This study aimed to investigate a sustainable strategy to mitigate drought str...

Efficient irrigation management is essential for sustainable crop production under increasing temperatures and tightening water supplies. In vineyards, water status significantly influences vine growth, yield, and fruit quality, and deficit irrigation is often used to impose controlled stress while avoiding damaging levels of water limitation. This creates a practical need for routine, field-scale monitoring of vine water stat...

The integration of photovoltaic systems with rainwater harvesting offers a promising solution for enhancing water and energy management in arid and semiarid agricultural regions."This study presents an agrivoltaic system where photovoltaic panels function both as energy source and as surfaces for runoff collection, directing rainwater into a storage reservoir for irrigation. A detailed analysis was conducted to evaluate differ...

In recent decades, plant-based sensors have been increasingly used to monitor plant water status, detecting water stress and improving irrigation scheduling. Among these sensors, microtensiometer (MT) continuously measures trunk water potential (TWP) supporting real-time monitoring of TWP and in turn plant water need assessment. However, MT response to environmental stimuli as mediated by plant has not yet fully elucidated. Th...

Thermal remote sensing indicators of crop water status can help to optimize irrigation across time and space. The Crop Water Stress Index (CWSI), calculated from thermal data, has been widely used in irrigation management as it has a proven association with evapotranspiration ratios. However, different approaches can be used to calculate the CWSI. The aim of this study is to identify the most robust method for estimating the C...

In this paper, the outflow process of a linear width contraction device for a free-flow condition is modeled using the dimensional analysis and the incomplete self-similarity condition. The proposed theoretical stage-discharge relationship is tested using measurements available in the literature. The proposed power stage-discharge equation is characterized by a value of the exponent close to 2 and a coefficient depending on th...

Characterization of model errors is important when applying satellite-driven evapotranspiration (ET) models to water resource management problems. This study examines how uncertainty in meteorological forcing data and land surface modeling propagate through to errors in final ET data calculated using the Satellite Irrigation Management Support (SIMS) model, a computationally efficient ET model driven with satellite surface ref...

Remote sensing estimation of evapotranspiration (ET) directly quantifies plant water consumption and provides essential information for irrigation scheduling, which is a pressing need for California vineyards as extreme droughts become more frequent. Many ET models take satellite-derived Leaf Area Index (LAI) as a major input, but how uncertainties of LAI estimations propagate to ET and the partitioning between evaporation and...

Optimizing water management has become one of the biggest challenges for grapevine growers in California, especially during drought conditions. Monitoring grapevine water status and stress level across the whole vineyard is an essential step for precision irrigation management of vineyards to conserve water. We developed a unified machine learning model to map leaf water potential ( $${\psi }_{\mathrm{leaf}}$$ ψ leaf ), by com...

Improved accuracy of evapotranspiration (ET) estimation, including its partitioning between transpiration (T) and surface evaporation (E), is key to monitor agricultural water use in vineyards, especially to enhance water use efficiency in semi-arid regions such as California, USA. Remote-sensing methods have shown great utility in retrieving ET from surface energy balance models based on thermal infrared data. Notably, the tw...

Frequent drought and high temperature conditions in California vineyards necessitate plant stress detection to support irrigation management strategies and decision making. Remote sensing provides a powerful tool to continuously monitor vegetation function across spatial and temporal scales. In this study, we utilized a tower-based optical-remote sensing system to continuously monitor four vineyard subplots in California’s Cen...