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Risk-based irrigation decision-making for the Shihmen Reservoir Irrigation District of Taiwan

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Abstract

The Shihmen Reservoir is the most important source of water supply for domestic, industrial, and agricultural sectors in northern Taiwan. Competition for water demands among the three sectors frequently occurs. In circumstances of prolonged drought, the agricultural water supply is reduced to meet the water demands of the domestic and industrial sectors. In making irrigation decisions, several irrigation scenarios may be proposed and evaluated to reach the final decision. However, the risk of irrigation decision-making often is not fully investigated in the decision-making process. In this study, we present an innovative risk-based irrigation decision-making approach for the Shihmen Reservoir Irrigation District in northern Taiwan. The approach, by considering the initial reservoir storage and the cumulative reservoir inflow, derives the cumulative distribution function of the available volume for irrigation and then calculates the risk of irrigation shortage, defined as the probability that the available volume for irrigation is lower than the irrigation water demand. A severe drought event that occurred in 2021 was used to demonstrate the application of the proposed approach. It was found that the drought mitigation measures taken by the Irrigation Agency for the 2021 drought event ensured a very low risk of irrigation shortage.

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Abbreviations

CDF:

Cumulative distribution function

CDT:

Critical decision time

GOF:

Goodness-of-fit

IA-COA:

Irrigation Agency, Council of Agriculture

LMRD:

L-moment ratio diagram

SRID:

Shihmen Reservoir Irrigation District

TDP:

Ten-day period

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Irrigation Agency, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC

    Sheng-Fu Tsai

  2. Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute, Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, Taichung City, Taiwan, ROC

    Dong-Hong Wu

  3. Taiwan Research Institute on Water Resources and Agriculture, New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC

    Gwo-Hsing Yu

  4. Department of Bioenvironmental Systems Engineering/Master Program in Statistics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC

    Ke-Sheng Cheng

Authors
  1. Sheng-Fu Tsai
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  2. Dong-Hong Wu
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  3. Gwo-Hsing Yu
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  4. Ke-Sheng Cheng
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gwo-Hsing Yu.

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Tsai, SF., Wu, DH., Yu, GH. et al. Risk-based irrigation decision-making for the Shihmen Reservoir Irrigation District of Taiwan. Paddy Water Environ 21, 497–508 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10333-023-00943-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10333-023-00943-9

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