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Sustainable Management and Regulation of Agricultural Water Resources in the Context of Global Climate Change, 2nd Edition

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Water Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2026 | Viewed by 831

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
College of Water Resources & Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China
Interests: mechanism and regulation of agricultural efficient water use; water-suitable structure adjustment and multi-objective optimization; water-food-energy-carbon system coupling and simulation; climate change and water resources
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
College of Water Resources & Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China
Interests: water-food-environment-trade nexus; large-scale modelling; climate change; water resource management; water scarcity assessment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Aridland Crop Science, College of Agronomy, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China
Interests: regulation mechanism of water use with diversified planting of crops; technologies and mechanisms for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in farmland; mechanism of soil carbon sequestration in farmland
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Water management for agriculture is becoming increasingly complex in the context of global climate change, which has intensified the risks of agricultural water management. In particular, climate change will add substantial economic and social challenges in regions where water scarcity is already a concern. While some aspects of climate change such as increased precipitation and CO2 concentration may bring some localized benefits, it will have a range of adverse impacts on agricultural production, including reduced water availability and more frequent extreme weather. Therefore, efforts to develop adaptation strategies through the sustainable management and regulation of agricultural water resources can enable the more efficient use of limited agricultural water resources by enhancing our understanding of the possible risks and adaptation strategies. These understandings could assist in developing priority measures for managing water resources for agricultural production. Evaluating and characterizing the efforts and benefits of agronomic and policy measures for agricultural water use is essential for climate change adaptation and ensuring food security. Finally, this advanced knowledge of agricultural water management can help policymakers to formulate robust measures to reduce the vulnerability of the agricultural sector to climate change and increase the system's resilience.

This Special Issue will identify historical and future trends and changes in crop evapotranspiration and irrigation to evaluate the effects of agronomic measurements, irrigation technologies, biological water-saving technologies, and water policy regulation on improving water use efficiency, as well as to propose sustainable pathways for adapting to future climate change, especially future extreme climate events.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews on experiments and modeling are all welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Map the temporal and spatial variations in crop evapotranspiration;
  • Observe and project the impacts of climate change on agricultural or crop water use;
  • Evaluate agronomic and irrigation water-saving technologies for enhancing the adaptation of food production to climate change;
  • Biological water-saving technologies including cultivars and physiology for improving agricultural water use efficiency;
  • Water policy initiatives for sustainable agriculture water management under climate change conditions;
  • Scale effect of agricultural water use estimation;
  • Contribution of blue water and green water toward water scarcity mitigation.

Dr. Xiaolin Yang
Prof. Dr. Wenfeng Liu
Prof. Dr. Wen Yin
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • ater scarcity
  • irrigation
  • agriculture water management
  • crop evapotranspiration
  • water use efficiency
  • climate change
  • adaptation
  • regulation

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

13 pages, 2708 KiB  
Article
Assessing the Impacts of Mulching on Vegetable Production Under Drip Irrigation in Burkina Faso
by Blessing Masasi, Niroj Aryal, Vinsoun Millogo, Jonathan Masasi, Ajit Srivastava and Prasanta K. Kalita
Sustainability 2025, 17(3), 916; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17030916 - 23 Jan 2025
Viewed by 542
Abstract
Burkina Faso faces chronic food insecurity because of adverse agroclimatic conditions and significant soil degradation. Mulching, the practice of applying organic or synthetic materials to the soil surface, offers a promising avenue for enhancing agricultural production in this challenging agroecological setting. This study [...] Read more.
Burkina Faso faces chronic food insecurity because of adverse agroclimatic conditions and significant soil degradation. Mulching, the practice of applying organic or synthetic materials to the soil surface, offers a promising avenue for enhancing agricultural production in this challenging agroecological setting. This study utilized the Sustainable Intensification Assessment Framework (SIAF) to evaluate the ecological, economic, and social impacts of mulching on vegetable production in Burkina Faso. Experimental and survey data collected from Sonsongona village in Bobo-Dioulasso were used to compare the production of mulched and non-mulched vegetables (tomato, cabbage, and onion) across the five SIAF domains. A calibrated AquaCrop crop model was also applied with 30-year historical weather data to simulate mulched and non-mulched cabbages for the study site. Our results reveal that mulching conserves soil moisture, suppresses weed growth, and enhances soil fertility, contributing to enhanced vegetable production and long-term sustainability. Economically, adopting mulching positively influences vegetable yields, reduces labor requirements, and increases income for smallholder farmers. These mulching benefits lead to community empowerment, particularly among women farmers. Our findings highlight the multifaceted benefits of mulching, suggesting that it holds promise for increasing agricultural productivity and improving economic stability, ecological sustainability, and social well-being in Burkina Faso. These insights contribute to developing context-specific strategies for sustainable intensification, with applicability across similar agroecological contexts in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. Full article
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