Salt, water and groundwater management models to determine sustainable cropping patterns in shallow saline groundwater regions of Australia

Abstract

This article describes models which can consider the interactions between plants, soils, water, irrigation practices, crop yields, and economics under shallow, saline groundwater conditions. Personal computing capability has now made it possible to develop a range of interactive modeling tools based on existing and new biophysical concepts. In view of the large number of available models, it is not possible to cover all modeling efforts in a single article. Hence, the discussion in this article is limited to farm and irrigation area scale salt, water, and groundwater management models. It provides an introduction to the SWAGMAN suite of models that have been used in Australia to determine sustainable cropping patterns under shallow, saline water table conditions. Salient features and applications of a detailed process based model (SWAGMAN Destiny), a lumped hydrologic economic model (SWAGMAN Farm) and a distributed biophysical model (SWAGSIM) are provided.