A parsimonius agroclimatic methodology to assess the hydrological sustainability of agriculture in the Mediterranean semiarid climate

We propose a robust and parametric-parsimonious framework to design the agricultural water balance at the planning level. The methodology is based on Melisenda's climate index, Benfratello's water balance and Budyko's curve, and deploys standard crop scenarios. It allows us to estimate the annual irrigation deficit and to assess the hydrological sustainability of the agroecosystems. We tested the method on two Mediterranean semiarid case studies, the Capitanata irrigation district (Southern Italy) and the Mygdonia basin (Northern Greece). Results show how the methodology effectively depicts (i) the crop suitability to the local climatology, (ii) the noteworthy effect of field capacity on the irrigation deficit and (iii) the irrigation water footprint of each crop scenario, thus providing a guideline for stakeholders to address a hydrologically-sustainable agricultural development. The methodology moreover highlights the field capacity as a key hydrological soil-health parameter and allows us to explicitly estimate its effect on the annual water balance.