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Paddy Water Environ (2009) 7:1–9
DOI 10.1007/s10333-008-0146-6
ARTICLE
Application of system dynamics approach for time varying water
balance in aerobic paddy fields
Yufeng Luo Æ Shahbaz Khan Æ Yuanlai Cui Æ
Shizhang Peng
Received: 20 May 2007 / Revised: 26 November 2008 / Accepted: 26 November 2008 / Published online: 9 January 2009

Springer-Verlag 2008
Abstract Increasing water scarcity has necessitated the
development of irrigated rice systems that require less water
than the traditional flooded rice. The cultivation of aerobic
rice is an effort to save water in response to growing
worldwide water scarcity with the pressure to reduce water
use and increase water productivity. An accurate estimation
of different water balance components at the aerobic rice
fields is essential to achieve effective use of limited water
supplies. Some field water balance components, such as
percolation, capillary rise and evapotranspiration, can not be
easily measured; therefore a soil water balance model is
required to develop and to test water management strategies.
This paper presents results of a study to quantify time varying
water balance under a critical soil water tension based irri-
gation criteria for the cultivation of non-ponded ‘‘aerobic
rice’’ fields along the lower parts of the Yellow River. Based
on the analysis and integration of existing field information
on the hydrologic processes in an aerobic rice field, this paper
outlines the general components of the water balance using a
conceptual model approach. The time varying water balance
is then analyzed using the feedback relations among the
hydrologic processes in a commercial dynamic modeling
environment, Vensim. The model simulates various water
Y. Luo
S. Peng
State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources
and Hydraulic Engineering, Hohai University,
210098 Nanjing, China
Y. Luo
Y. Cui
State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower
Engineering Science, Wuhan University, 430072 Wuhan, China
S. Khan (&)
UNESCO Division of Water Sciences, 1 Rue Miollis,
75 732 Paris Cedex 15, France
e-mail: S.Khan@Unesco.Org
balance components such as actual evapotranspiration, deep
percolation, surface runoff, and capillary rise in the aerobic
rice field on a daily basis. The model parameters are vali-
dated with the observed experimental field data from the
Huibei Irrigation Experiment Station, Kaifeng, China. The
validated model is used to analyze irrigation application soil
water tension trigger under wet, dry and average climate
conditions using daily time steps. The scenario analysis show
that to conserve scarce water resources during the average
climate years the irrigation scheduling criteria can be set as
-30 kPa average root zone soil water tension; whereas it can
be set at -70 kPa during the dry years, however, the asso-
ciated yields may reduce. Compared with the flooded
lowland rice and other upland crops, with these two alter-
natives irrigation event triggers, aerobic rice cultivation can
lead to significant water savings.
Keywords Soil water balance
Aerobic rice

Water savings
System dynamics
Irrigation scheduling

Vensim
Introduction
Increasing water scarcity has necessitated the development
of irrigated rice systems that require less water than
traditional flooded rice. Since the late 1990s, aerobic rice
has been grown in the North China Plain as a supple-
mentary-irrigated upland crop to cope with water scarcity.
In irrigated aerobic rice systems, rice grows in non-flooded
and non-saturated soil conditions under supplemental irri-
gation. Aerobic rice is not ponded and irrigated similar to
other crops in water-scarce environments, and can stand
periodic flooding conditions (Castañeda et al. 2004; Yang
et al. 2005). In the lower Yellow River Basin, the irrigation
123
2 Paddy Water Environ (2009) 7:1–9
water requirement for low land rice is about 1,590 mm/
season (Dong et al. 2003); while for the aerobic rice, it is
around 400–700 mm/season or less. In Beijing areas,
average water requirement is 596.1 mm/season (573.9–
629.6 mm/season). The water requirement for aerobic rice
is similar to the dry land crops, while it has higher
economic value (Bouman et al. 2002).
Yang et al. (2005) and Bouman et al. (2006) reported
performance of aerobic rice in north China. Belder et al.
(2005) and Peng et al. 2006) compared agronomic perfor-
mance of aerobic and flooded rice in tropical areas and
comfirmed a yield gap between aerobic and flooded rice. The
yield loss of aerobic rice could outweigh the benefits of its
water savings. One of the ways to narrow the gap is to
develop varieties that are more adapted to aerobic conditions
(Peng et al. 2006). Supplemental irrigation has been proven
necceeesary to fullfil crop water requirements (Zhang et al.
2007); therefore the other is to improve irrigation manage-
ment to reduce crop water stress (Belder et al. 2005).
In any water harvesting and recycling system, accurate
estimation of different water balance components in a
cropped field is essential to achieve effective use of limited
irrigation water (Agrawal et al. 2004). Soil water balance
models are helpful to develop appropriate irrigation event
triggers for the efficient management of irrigation water.
The existing soil water balance models for rainfed and low
land rice has been the subject of various studies (e.g.,
Agrawal et al. 2004; Panigrahi and Panda 2003; Wopereis
et al. 1993); however, a soil water balance model for the
aerobic rice is still rare from the previous studies. Li (2006)
and Feng et al. (2007) used ORYZA2000 to simulate water
balance of low land rice and aerobic rice fields and
believed that the ORYZA2000 yields reasonable and
acceptable simulation results of water balance for lowland
rice fields; however, as for aerobic rice, the model per-
formance is not good enough.
The objectives of this study include (1) to develop a
physically based water balance model for aerobic rice field
with focus on the interactions between components of the
water balance and, (2) to investigate irrigation strategies
for aerobic rice under different climate conditions.
Methodology
The conceptual water balance model is firstly presented
based on the analysis and integration of existing information
available on hydraulic processes occurring in an aerobic rice
field. The time variant water balance is analyzed using the
feedback relations among the components. Referring
to existing knowledge and information, the model is for-
mulated using mathematical equations governing the
unsaturated soil water balance and implemented using the
123
Vensim simulation tool. The model simulates various water
balance components such as actual evapotranspiration,
percolation, surface runoff, and capillary rise in the field on a
daily basis. The model parameters and results are validated
with the observed experimental field data from Huibei Irri-
gation Experiment Station, Kaifeng. The water balance is
analyzed for different climate and irrigation event triggers
aimed at saving water.
Conceptual model
During 2001–2004 a field trial on aerobic rice was estab-
lished in the upland area of the Huibei Experiment Station,
Kaifeng, China. In this paper the authors only reported the
modeling results for 2003 field data. The water balance
model is formulated for an aerobic rice cultivation with
supplemental irrigation based on a soil water tension trig-
ger. Since the main soil textures in the flood plain are
cloase sandy loam (with permeability coefficient of
0.4 m/day) and there was no dyke around the field, no
standing water was observed during the growth season,
only unsaturated soil condition was taken into account. The
field trial plots were divided with plastic to avoid lateral
percolation between them.
Schematically, the root zone in the aerobic rice field can
be conceptualized as a box in which the water content
fluctuates over time (Fig. 1). The water content is expres-
sed as the crop root zone fraction. The losses and gains of
the water balance system are expressed in terms of water
depth. Rainfall, irrigation and capillary rise of groundwater
towards the root zone add water to the root zone and
decrease the root zone depletion, soil evaporation, crop
transpiration, and percolation losses remove water from the
root zone and increase the depletion (Allen et al. 1998);
surface runoff only occurs when the root zone is saturated.
In Fig. 1, ETa is actual evapotranspiration, mm/day; RAW
is the readily available soil water in the root zone, mm;
TAW is the total available soil water in the root zone, mm.
Model formulation
Considering the effective root zone as a single layer, the
soil water balance at the field level can be expressed in
terms of different components as given below:
Sj ¼ Sj1 þ Ij þ Rj þ CRj  ETaj  Pj  SRj ð1Þ
where Sj, Sj-1 are the soil water storage at the end of day j
and j -1 mm/day; Ij is the irrigation on day j mm/day; Rj is
the rainfall on day j mm/day; CRj is the capillary rise from
the underlying water table on day j depending on the depth
to water table mm/day; ETaj is the evapotranspiration on
day j mm/day; Pj is the percolation on day j; and SRj is the
runoff on day j (Allen et al. 1998).
Paddy Water Environ (2009) 7:1–9 3

content, m3/m3; hr is residual water content, m3/m3; hs is

water content at saturation, m3/m3; and k is pore size index,
dimensionless. Unsaturated hydraulic conductivity is
calculated as:
KðhÞ ¼ Ks
ea=hðhÞ ð7Þ
where Ks is the saturated vertical hydraulic conductivity,
m/day; and a is texture-specific empirical constant, which
is 1.0 for sandy loam soil (Tindall et al. 1999).
Darcy’s Law was used to calculate the percolation from
soil water to groundwater:
ðhðhÞ  hÞ
KðhÞ
P¼ ð8Þ
T

Fig. 1 Conceptual model of the aerobic soil water balance adapted where h is the groundwater head, m; and T is the soil
from Allen et al. (1998) thickness between rooting zone and groundwater table, m.
Upward capillary fluxes from the groundwater are
ordinarily evaluated using empirical formulas that involve
Under unsaturated soil conditions, actual evapotranspi- some soil-related parameters and consider the depth of
ration (ETa) is calculated by: groundwater table below the root zone. Capillary rise is
ETa ¼ Kc
Ks
ET0 ð2Þ evaluated using the following exponential relationship (Li
and Dong 1998):
where Ks is a factor expressing the effects of limiting soil
moisture conditions on crop evapotranspiration, dimen- CR ¼ ETc
er
d ð9Þ
sionless; and Kc is the single crop coefficient, dimensionless where CR is the capillary rise, mm/d; ETc is the crop
(Allen et al. 1998). evapotranspiration, mm/day; r is a parameter that relates to
The soil moisture coefficient used in Eq. 2 is calculated the capacity of the soil to transmit capillary fluxes, mm-1;
by: and d is the depth of the groundwater table below the

1 D  RAW bottom of the root zone, mm.
Ks ¼ TAWD
RAW  D  TAW ð3Þ
TAWRAW Throughout the aerobic rice growth season, no standing
water was observed. Since the study site is located in a
where D is the root zone depletion, mm (Allen et al. 1998). semi-humid area, only saturation-excess runoff is taken
According to Fig. 1, we have: into accounted. When the soil becomes saturated after

1 h  hthreshold irrigation or rainfall, excess water is accounted as surface
Ks ¼ hhwp
h  h\h ð4Þ runoff. Surface runoff from the field is given as:
hthreshold hwp wp threshold

0 h  hs
where h is the volumetric water content, m3/m3; hwp is the SRj ¼ ð10Þ
Sj  hs
D r h [ hs
water content at wilting point, m3/m3; and hthreshold is the
threshold water content when water stress occurs, m3/m3: where h is the saturated water content; Dr is the root depth
hthreshold ¼ ð1  pÞ
hfc þ p
hwp ð5Þ and the other are the same as above.

where p is the fraction of total available water that a crop

can extract from the root zone, dimensionless, and the Water balance simulation using the system dynamics
value for p for rice is 0.20 of saturation; and hfc is the water approach
content at field capacity, m3/m3.
Under unsaturated conditions, the following soil water System dynamics is a theory of system structure and a set of
retention function proposed by Brooks and Corey (1964) is tools for representing complex systems and analyzing their
used: dynamic behavior. The most important feature of system
dynamics is to elucidate the endogenous structure of the
hb
hðhÞ ¼  1=k ð6Þ system under study, to see how the different elements of the
hhr system actually relate to one another, and to experiment
hs hr
with changing relations within the system when different
where h(h) is negative pressure head, mm; hb is bubbling or decisions are included. In system dynamics, the relation
air entry pressure head, mm; h is volumetric soil water between structure and behavior is based on the concept of

123
4 Paddy Water Environ (2009) 7:1–9
information feedback and control (Simonovic 2002). The
system dynamics approach is an appropriate technique for
integrated water resources analysis. The inherent flexibility
and transparency is particularly helpful for the development
of simulation models for complex water resource systems
with subjective variables and parameters. The flexibility
allows the application of hierarchical decomposition in
the model development and the transparency raises the
possibility of practitioners’ involvement in the model
development, increasing their confidence on model opera-
tion and its outputs (Simonovic 2002).
This study attempts to develop a dynamic model for
addressing soil water balance associated with agro-climatic
processes using the system dynamics approach. Compared
with the conventional simulation or optimisation models,
the system dynamics approach is more beneficial for
indicating how different changes of basic elements affect
the dynamics of the system in the future. It is therefore
particularly useful for representing complex systems with
strong influences from social or economic elements
(Xu et al. 2002). Recent applications of the system
dynamics approach in the field of water resources include
long-term water resource planning and policy analysis
(Simonovic and Fahmy 1999), reservoir operation (Ahmad
and Simonovic 2000), salinization on irrigated lands
(Saysel and Barlas 2001; Khan et al. 2007) and simulation
of the hydraulic dynamics in a hydropower plants system
(Caballero et al. 2004).
In system dynamics modeling, causal loop diagrams
represent the major feedback mechanisms, which reinforce
(positive feedback loop represented by ‘?’) or counteract
(negative feedback loop represented by ‘-’) a given
change in a system variable (Sterman 2000). The first
negative feedback loop in Fig. 2 represents the interaction
between actual evapotranspiration ‘ETa’ and soil water
storage: the larger the ETa, the less the water storage, then
the less the soil water content and soil moisture coefficient
ETa + ks
+ Field experiments were conducted in 2001 till 2004 in
water content
(1) +
(2)
- (34520 N, 114510 E; 69 m altitude), Where groundwater
Soil water + table was very shallow, which was not suitable for soil
+ (3)
- tension control. From 2002 to 2004, the experiments were
negative
pressure head
+ +
capillary rise
percolation
Fig. 2 Causal loop diagram for the dynamic soil water system
123
‘ks’, which in turn decreases ETa, completing the negative
loop. The second feedback loop represents the interaction
between ETa and capillary rise: the larger the ETa, the
larger the capillary rise, then the larger the soil water
content and ks, which in turn increases ETa, completing
the positive loop. The third feedback loop represents the
interaction between soil water storage and percolation: the
larger the storage, the larger the water content, then
the negative pressure head and percolation will increase,
which in turn decreases soil water storage, completing the
negative loop.
The model is implemented using the system dynamic
tool, Vensim. Vensim provides a simple and flexible way
of building simulation models from causal loop or stock
and flow diagrams. By connecting words with arrows,
relationships among system variables are entered and
recorded as causal connections. This information is used by
the Equation Editor to help form a complete simulation
model. A modelers can analyze his/her model throughout
the building process, looking at the causes and uses of a
variable, and also at the loops involving the variable
(Ventana Systems, Inc. 2004). The model structure is
shown in Fig. 3.
In Fig. 3, soil water potential is calculated by the fol-
lowing equation derived from van Genuchten’s model (van
Genuchten 1980):
 1=m 1=n
hs hr
hhr 1
w¼ ð11Þ
a
where w is the soil water potential, kPa; a, m and n are
dimensionless coefficients; and the others are the same as
above.
The values of parameters (Table 1) were abstracted
from previous studies (Li et al. 2004; Li 2006) and other
unpublished technical reports of Huibei Irrigation experi-
ment Station) on Liuyuankou area.
Model validation
Liuyuankou Irrigation System near Kaifeng City, Henan
Province, China. The experiment in 2001 was conducted
on a loam soil in a lowland rice area at Gaozhai site
shifted to Panlou site on a sandy loam soil in an upland
crop (where farmers predominantly grow maize, cotton,
soybean, and other nonrice crops) area in Panlou Village
(34580 N, 114520 E; 68 m altitude). Here only data for
2003 was used to validate the proposed model. Key soil
properties of both sites are given in Table 2.
Paddy Water Environ (2009) 7:1–9 5

Fig. 3 The stock-flow structure water content at fc

p
of the dynamic soil water kc
balance model ET0 water content at threshold n m
a
rainfall water potential
ETa ks water content at wp
initial soil water
water content
Soil water rooting depth
irrigation surface runoff
residual water
k
content
cr factor saturated
water content pore size index
negative pressure head
hcritCR
capillary rise air entry
percolation
unsaturated hydraulic pressure head
conductivity
groundwater depth saturated hydraulic conductivity
texture specific constant

Table 1 Values of parameters of the model (units are only indicated adequacy of observed vs. simulated soil water potential)
where applicable; remaining parameters are dimensionless) and statistical tests. The statistical tests include the t-test,
hs (m3/m3) hr (m3/m3) hwp (m3/m3) hfc (m3/m3) p hb (mm) coefficient of Determination (R2) and root-mean-square
error (RMSE).
0.31 0.095 0.1 0.24 0.2 -8.7
-1
k a r (mm ) a m n
Results
0.91 1.0 0.0001 0.026 0.993 298.01
Model validity

The aerobic rice variety HD297 was manually sown in
rows of 30 cm distance at the rate of 150 kg seed/ha. The
land was prepared by ploughing and harrowing under dry
conditions. Both years, a split-plot design was used with
water as the main treatment and N as the subtreatment.
Sizes of the split plots were 16 m 9 11 m. Supplemental
irrigation was applied when soil water tension reached at
-30 and -70 kPa, the two different irrigation event
triggers (T 2 and T 3).
The model input data include daily rainfall, irrigation,
reference crop evaporation, root zone depth and ground-
water depth. Daily rainfall and other weather data was
measured by a HJ07 weather station (Beijing ECOA Sci-
ence and Developemnt Co, Ltd). The FAO-56 Penmann-
montieth method was used to calculated reference crop
evaporation. A water meter measured irrigation water
passes through the pipe for water supply. Root zone depth
determined through sampling root at each growth stage,
and groundwater well was installed in the field to moni-
toring groundwater depth.
Daily soil tensions at four depths (10, 25, 50 and 75 cm)
of root zone were measured in the field using a TS-4 ten-
sionmenter (The Institute of Soil Science, Chinese
Academy of Sciences). The daily soil tension data were
used to validate the model using the graphical (e.g., visual
The graphical results presented in Figs. 4 and 5 show the
daily variation of the observed values of soil water
potential for the experimental field for two different water
treatments, along with the simulated values. The figures
show that for most of the study period, observed and
simulated values follow the same trend. As for the simu-
lated results of the components of water balance, such as
evapotranspiration, percolation, capillary rise and surface
runoff, there were no observed data to compare with, but
the simulated values appear reasonable based on authors’
experience in this area. Figure 6 shows the simulated
percolation for T 2 as an example.
Results of statistical comparison between observed and
simulated soil water potential are presented in Table 3.
Values of the coefficient of determination (R2) between the
observed and simulated values of water potential were
found to be high (more than 0.85 for two treatments),
which justifies the prediction ability of the developed
model. The RMSE between the daily observed and simu-
lated water content for the two water treatments are 3.96
and 7.21 kPa. The t-test indicates that the simulated and
observed values are the same at 95% confidence level
(Table 3). Thus it may be concluded that the model pre-
sented in the paper can perform the simulation of water
balance.

123
6 Paddy Water Environ (2009) 7:1–9

Table 2 Soil properties at Panlou experimental site

Soil depth Soil organic Bulk density Soil texture (%) Saturated conductivity Gravimetric soil water content (%)
(cm) matter (%) (g/cm3) (m/day) at different tension levels
Sand Silt Clay 30 kPa 100 kPa 1,500 kPa

0–35 1.2 1.25 43 46 11 0.30 25 20 13

35–68 0.9 1.37 26 55 19 0.19 26 23 17
68–82 0.4 1.55 78 15 7 0.75 13 10 6
82–100 0.8 1.30 37 33 30 0.02 31 29 24

25-Jun 5-Jul 15-Jul 25-Jul 4-Aug 14-Aug 24-Aug 3-Sep 13-Sep Table 4 shows the annual precipitation and precipitation
0 during aerobic rice growth season (25 June–13 September)
and typical years. Table 5 shows the simulated water bal-
So il water po tential (KPa)

-10
ance components under dry, wet and average rainfall
-20 conditions for each of the 4 irrigation event triggers (12
model runs).
-30 Table 3 indicates that for the study area the percolation
Simulated loss is very high (over 1,300 mm for aerobic rice and more
-40 Observved for lowland flooded rice); evapotranspiration is about
-50
350 mm under non-stress conditions; therefore, to maintain
-10 kPa for the whole growth season, 1,500–1,600 mm of
Fig. 4 Simulated and observed water potential for T 2 irrigation water is required, and 800–900 mm of irrigation
water for -30 kPa soil water tension and 0–200 mm for
-70 kPa soil water tension based irrigation trigger.
25-Jun 5-Jul 15-Jul 25-Jul 4-Aug 14-Aug 24-Aug 3-Sep 13-Sep For T 1, irrigation water is above 1,000 mm, which
0 causes percolation of 1,200–1,300 mm, evapotranspiration
So il water p o ten tial (Kp a)

-10 is about 320 mm in average and wet years, 360 mm in dry

-20
years, and there is sufficient water left in the soil. Generally,
this scenario is not feasible due to low water use efficiency.
-30
Simulated Under T 2 conditions, there is almost no water stress
-40 Observed
(as indicated by the ETa term, yield estimates will be
-50 included in future version of the model) and thus no yield
-60 reduction, water requirement is about 400–700 mm, per-
colation losses are significant reduced to about 600 mm. T 2
-70
provides high water use efficiency. But in dry years, water
Fig. 5 Simulated and observed water potential for T 3 requirement increases to 690 mm, which may be hard to be
satisfy in arid areas. T 3 may result in slight water stress due
to lower ETa, but irrigation requirement and percolation
Model application
losses are very low. Highest water use productivity might be
achieved if this scenario is adopted. This strategy is suitable
The validated model was used to simulate the water bal-
for dry years. Even very little irrigation water is required,
ance for different irrigation event triggers and climate
T 4, rainfed, is not a good option for aerobic rice cultivation,
scenarios. Li et al. (2004) designed four irrigation event
which is only for wet years.
triggers for aerobic rice:
The -10 kPa irrigation event criteria requires a lot of
• T 1: keeping 3–5 cm water level during 10 days from water and rainfed option will result in significant yield
transplanting, then no standing water; Irrigate when the reduction in dry and average years due to low ETa; T 1 and
soil water potential falls lower -10 kPa; T 2 irrigation event triggers are not appropriate for all
• T 2: irrigating when the soil water potential falls lower climate conditions; in dry years, aerobic rice should be
-30 kPa; irrigated when soil water tension reaches -70 kPa, in wet
• T 3: irrigating when the soil water potential falls lower years -30 kPa, in average years from -70 to -30 kPa,
-70 kPa; and respectively. To avoid yield reduction, irrigation event
• T 4: rainfed, no irrigation after green revision period. trigger should be -30 kPa average root zone water

123
Paddy Water Environ (2009) 7:1–9 7

Fig. 6 Simulated percolation 25-Jun 5-Jul 15-Jul 25-Jul 4-Aug 14-Aug 24-Aug 3-Sep 13-Sep
for T 1 0 45

40
20
35

Irrig at i o n an d rain fal l (mm)

40 Irrigation and
30
Rainfall

Perco l at io n (mm)
Percolation 25
60
20
80
15

100 10

5
120
0

140 -5

Table 3 Results of statistical comparison between observed and simulated soil water potential
N Xmean (SD) Ymean (SD) P(t) a b R2 RMSE

T1 83 -12.6 (10.4) -12.4 (9.3) 0.458 1.06 0.60 0.91 25

T2 83 -15.7 (19.1) -17.4 (18.8) 0.285 1.01 1.8 0.97 22
In this table, N is the data pairs; Xmean is the mean of observed values, kPa; Ymean is the mean of simulated values, kPa; SD is the standard
deviation, kPa; P(t) is the significance of paired t-test; P(t) [ 0.05 means simulated and observed values are the same at 95% confidence level;
ais the slope of linear relation between simulated and observed values; b is the intercept of the linear relation between simulated and observed
value; R2 is the coefficient of determination of Y = aX ? b; and RMSE is the root mean square error

Table 4 Precipitation for dry, wet and average years (mm) Table 5 Water balance components for the studied scenarios (mm)
Annua Precipitation during Typical Climate Irrigation Rainfall Irrigation ETa Percolation Storage
precipitation aerobic rice growth season year scenario event change
trigger
Dry year 415 232 1988
Wet year 779 456 1998 Dry year T 1 232 1,450 364 1,332 18
Average 609 338 2000 T2 232 690 364 642 -71
T3 232 200 343 224 -126
T4 232 0 303 100 -163
content; to obtain high water use efficiency, irrigation Wet year T 1 456 1,090 319 1,240 10
event trigger can be set as -70 kPa. T2 456 395 319 652 -116
T3 456 0 306 302 -150
T4 456 0 306 302 -150
Discussion
Average T1 338 1,215 316 1,231 12
T2 338 450 316 584 -110
Li (2006) tried to use the experiement data at the Gaozhai
T3 338 150 311 292 -110
site for 2001 to validate ORYZA2000 and believed that
T4 338 0 279 204 -142
ORYZA2000 could yield acceptable performance when it
was used to aerobic rice growth simulation; however, as for
water balance simulation, the results ware not good better for the proposed system dynamics model than the
enough. From Feng et al. (2007), for soil water tension, the ORYZA model. We believe that the interactions presented
goodness-of-fit parameters were better for XD90247 in in the system dynamics model play an important role in
2002 (flooded rice) than for HD297 in 2003 and 2004 water balance component rate calculation. In many water
(aerobic rice). Table 6 presents the comparison between balance models, some rates, such as runoff, percolation and
the performance of ORYZA and the propsed system crop evapotranspiration (if there is water stress), are cal-
dynamics model. From the statistical data presented in culated from soil water storage or soil water content.
Table 6 it is clear that the regression coefficients and the However, soil water storage or soil water content is still
root mean square error of observed and modelled data are unknown before all the components of the water balance

123
8 Paddy Water Environ (2009) 7:1–9
Table 6 Results of statistical comparison between observed and simulated soil water potential (kPa)
N Xmean (SD) Ymean (SD)
ORYZA2000 (Li 2006) 291 -14.8 (13.5) -10.5 (15.5)
ORYZA2000 (Feng et al. 2007) 1320 -12 (12) 14 (13)
System dynamics model 166 -14.1 (15.4) -18.9 (15.0)
are determined, thus these rates are sometimes calculated
using the soil water storage or contents of the previous time
step. In Panigrahi and Panda (2003) for example, deep
percolation for the time t is calculated using the soil water
content of t-1. If water stress is taken into accounted, we
should calculated the soil water coefficient Ks and water
content for time step t firstly, while before all crop
evapotranspiration is estimated, soil water coefficient Ks
and water content for time step t are still unknown. This
problem can be conveniently solved in the Vensim simu-
lation system: from a system dynamics point of view, a
system is controlled by two types of feedback loops and
maintains a balance, and the interactions between the
components are taken into consideration, therefore the rates
are calculated using the parameters of the current time step.
In this study, scenarios T 1 and T 2 can considered as
sufficient irrigation regimes due to compared with T 1, no
ETa is reduced for T 2, and T 3 and T 4 are insufficient
irrigation regimes. Zhang et al. (2007) provides supple-
mental irrigation for aerobic rice in Beijing areas in
different climate years under sufficient irrigation, 106.6,
171.1 and 296.0 mm for wet, average and dry years, which
are far less then our results. The reason is that only crop
evapotranspiration water requirements are considered and
percolation is ignored in Zhang et al. (2007). Perhaps
percolation losses are alarmingly high (204–1,332 mm/
season) in North China, thus our results are more realistic.
Most of the water savings are caused by reduced percola-
tion rates (Bouman et al. 2007), instead of crop
evapotranspiration. Percolation losses result in raising
groundwater table and secondary soil salinization; on the
other hand, percolation losses recharge aquifers. Puddling
soil during land preparation is a simple and feasible way
for saving water from percolation losses (Kukal and Ag-
garwal 2002). In this work, it should be pointed out that
percolation in this study is considered as a net water loss
which may not be true in systems where reuse is possible.
In any case lower percolation losses represent net water
quality and energy savings by having to pump less
groundwater. Further studies are recommended on the role
of percolation and interaction between irrigation and
groundwater.
To rationally allocate limited irrigation water to differ-
ent growth stages, it is needed to identify the stage most
sensitive to water deficit. According to Zhang et al. (2007),
123
P(t) a b R2 RMSE (%, normalized)
0.003 0.787 -1.15 0.47 83
0.00 0.48 8.16 0.22 107
0.367 1.01 0.87 0.97 24
yield is sensitive to water deficit at the booting and filling
stages of aerobic rice; but from Zhao et al. (2004), the
treatment of application of 148 mm irrigation water at
sprouting-jointing stage has higher water productivity than
74 mm irrigation water at the jointing-booting stage. In
fact, the sensitivity for different growth stages are different,
therefore irrigation event triggers for different stages are
necessary.
Summary and conclusions
The present study was carried out to simulate the water
balance in a rice field on a daily basis under an aerobic
condition with the provision of supplemental irrigation
based on soil water potential trigger. The objectives were
accomplished by developing a physically based conceptual
water balance model and then the conceptual model was
implemented using the system dynamic tool, Vensim. The
water balance model was formulated to simulate the per-
colation, actual evapotranspiration, surface runoff, and
capillary rise as these processes occur in the field water
balance system. The model was validated using the
experimental data. A statistical test (t-test) was carried out
to determine the significance between the observed and
simulated values of the parameters. The t-test indicates that
the simulated and observed values are the same at the 95%
confidence level.
The validated model was used to quantify water balance
under different soil water tension based triggers. As com-
pared with low land rice, aerobic rice cultivation can result
in much lower water consumption if a suitable irrigation
event trigger is selected. The modeling results show that to
avoid significant yield reduction, irrigation trigger criteria
need to be based on reaching a -30 kPa soil water tension
in the root zone. The irrigation trigger of -70 kPa soil
water tension can achieve significant water savings and but
may suffer from yield reduction during the average and dry
rainfall years. The -10 kPa soil water tension irrigation
trigger and rainfed options are not feasible under any
climate scenarios.
The system dynamics technique proved to be an efficient
approach for the simulation of a complex water resource
system under the aerobic rice cultivation. Its merits include
the increased speed of model development, ease of model
Paddy Water Environ (2009) 7:1–9
improvement, the ability to simulate the interactions
between the water balance components. Other scenarios
can be easily evaluated by using the framework presented
in this paper.
Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Mr. Feng
Yuehua and his colleagues from Huibei Irrigation Experiment Station
for their kind collaboration on the experiment setup and providing all
available data. The financial support received from the Australian
Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR, project
number LWR1/2000/030) and National Natural Science Foundation
of China (Project Number 50579059) is acknowledged. Thanks are
due to two anonymous reviewers for their many constructive remarks.
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