Investigation of effective precipitation sufficiency in rainfed farming in order to development of autumn cereals cropping in agricultural lands of Aq-Qala, Kalale and Gonbad Kavous townships (Golestan province) by spatial analysis of GIS

Document Type : Scientific - Research

Authors

• Shiva Farhadian Azizi
• Hossein Kazemi
• Afshin Soltani

Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Crop Production, Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Iran

10.22067/jag.v11i2.61365

Abstract

Introduction:
Annual climate variation, along with water shortage is an important factor influencing agricultural productivity, especially in rainfed crop production systems. Also, understanding the current relationship between food grain production and rainfall will help in assessing the possible impact of future  climate change on the livelihood of smallholder farmers. In Golestan province due to different climates and extended rainfed lands, amount and spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall is very important. In general, the minimum rainfall for dry farming is about 250-300 mm. In addition, distribution of rainfall during the growing period is also noticeable. The enough moisture in vegetation phase is essential for growth and establishment of plant. In this study, spatial analysis of GIS and some methods of classic interpolation and geostatistical methods were used  to evaluate spatial and temporal changes of rainfall variables in the agricultural lands of Aq-Qala, Kalale and Gonbad Kavous townships in Golestan province.
 
Materials and methods:
This research was carried out in Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (GUASRN), during 2015. The studied region was included the agricultural lands of Aq-Qala, Gonbad Kavous and Kalale townships in Golestan province, as three important regions for  dry farming production. First, the data of 10 synoptic stations and 77 rain-gauge stations from Golestan province were used. The thematic maps of rainfall variables such as annual, autumn, spring, November and May precipitations were provided using various methods of geostatistical and classic interpolation such as Ordinary Kriging (OK), Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) and Radial Basis Function (RBF) in GIS (var. 10) media. Before interpolation calculations, common statistical tests were performed on main data. The performance criteria for evaluation were Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Mean Bias Error (MBE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Cross Validation. In this research, a semivariogram function was used to show the variation of rainfalls with respect to distance.
 
Results and discussion:
The results showed that Kriging-spherical model was the best method to estimate autumn and May precipitations and also, the annual, spring and November precipitations were interpolated by Multi-quadric (RBF) in agricultural lands of Aq-Qala, Kalale and Gonbad Kavous townships. Furthermore, the IDW and Thin Plate Spline (TPS) were introduced as inappropriate methods due to high error  in precipitation estimate. The semivariograms analysis indicated that autumn, spring, November and May precipitation variables were the best fitted by Spherical models, but annual precipitation was fitted by Exponential model. It was found that some areas in north of Aq-Qala and Gonbad Kavous had the limitation in amounts of spring and May precipitations. The spatial distribution of precipitations showed that annual precipitation was increased from north to south, so that, the maximum annual precipitation was observed in Kalale township. Thus, this township can be a region with high suitable degree for dry farming some autumn crops such as wheat and barley. The lowest autumn rainfall amount was observed in the northern parts of Gonbad Kavous township with 31.37 mm, but the southern parts of the Aq-Qala, Gonbad Kavous and especially Kalale had the highest autumn precipitation amounts.
 
Conclusion:
Result of the spatial distribution of precipitation showed that amounts of precipitation variables were increased from north to south of the studied region. Totally, among  the three studied townships, Kalale township had the highest amounts of precipitations and the best spatial distribution of precipitation variables for rainfed farming. Therefore, this township was selected as the high suitable region for  dry farming in Golestan province.
 Acknowledgements:
We are grateful to Agriculture Service Centers of Golestan province and Gorgan University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (GUASNR).

Keywords

• Geographical information system
• Inverse Distance Weighting
• Kriging
• rainfall
• Semivariograms

20.1001.1.20087713.1398.11.2.14.1

---

References

Agricultural Jihad Organization of Golestan. 2013. Statistics and Information Office. Available at Web site.http:www.jago.ir. (In Persian)

Asakareh, H., and Mazini, F. 2010. The analysis of the probability of annual precipitation in Golestan province. Journal of Research Iran Water Resource 6: 1. 51-55. (In Persian with English Summary)

Ashraf Taliei, A., and Bahrami, N. 2003. Evaluation of the temperature and rainfall effect on rainfed wheat cultivation in Kermanshah. Journal of Soil Water Science 17 (1): 106-133. (In Persian with English Summary)

Azizi, G. 2000. Estimation of effective precipitation on the cultivation of rainfed wheat, case study of Khorram Abad region. Geographical Research 33: 115-123. (In Persian with English Summary)

Buytaert, W., Celleri, R., Willems, P., de Bievre, B., and Wyseure, G. 2006. Spatial and temporal rainfall variability in mountainous areas: A case study from the south Ecuadorian Andes. Journal of Hydrology 329: 3-4: 413-421.

Bazgir, S. 2000. Investigation of climate potential for rainfed wheat cultivation (Case study: Kurdistan Province). Thesis of M.Sc., Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tehran, Iran 123 p. (In Persian with English Summary)

Behnia, M.R. 1997. Cereal. Second Edition. University of Tehran Press. 610 p. (In Persian)

Carlson, R.E., and Foley, T.A. 1991. The parameter R2 in multiquadric interpolation. Computers & Mathematics with Application 21:29-42.

Delbari, M., Khayyat Khalghi, M., and Mahdian, M.H. 2004. Evaluation of geostatistics method for estimation of direction soil hydraulic in dip water areas in Sistan region. Journal of Agricultral Science Iran 35: 1. 1-13. (In Persian with English Summary)

Descroix, L., Nouvelot, J.F., Estrada, J., and Lebal, T. 2001. Complementarily and convergence of rainfall regionalization processes: application to an endoergic basin of Northern Mexico. Revue Des Sciences De L'Eau 14:3. 281-305.

Ghanbar Pour, M.R. 2005. Comparison of methods of spatial analysis in determining the rainfall and temperature in the basin scale (Case study: watershed of Talesh). Journal of Agricultural Science Natural Resource Caspian 3:1. 29-43. (In Persian with English Summary)

Goovaerts, P. 2000. Geostatistical approach for incorporation, elevation into spatial interpolation of rainfall. Journal of Hydrology 228. 113-129.

Givi, J. 1997. Qualitative evaluation of land for agricultural crops. Soil and Water Research Institute Press, Iran. 115 N. (In Persian)

Hasani Pak, A.A. 2007. Geostatistics. University of Tehran Press., Iran. 314 p. (In Persian)

Hargrove, W. 2001. Interpolation of rainfall in Switzerland using a regularized spline with tension, Geographic Information and Spatial Technologies Group, Book Ridge National Laboratory. 122-125.

Kazemi, H., Tahmasebi Sarvestani, Z., Kamkar, B., Shataei, S., and Sadeghi, S. 2012. Evaluation of geostatistical methods for estimating and zoning of macronutrients in agricultural lands on Golestan province. Journal of Soil Water Science 22: 201-218. (In Persian with English Summary)

Khosh Akhlagh, F., Rnajbar, F., Tolabi, S., Maghbal, M., and Massompour Samakoosh, J. 2010. Investigation of drought year of 1998-99 and its effects on water resources and agriculture, case study: Marvdasht town ship. Geography Journal 8 (24): 119-136. (In Persian with English Summary)

Kamali, G., 1997. Agroclimatology study of lands potaitiol for dry farming in west of the country, with emphasis on wheat. Ph.D. Thesis, Islamic Azad University of Science and Research Branch of Tehran, Iran, Iran. 152 p. (In Persian with English Summary)

Karimi, H., 1992. Wheat. University of Tehran Press. 48p. (In Persian)

Kamkar, B., and Mahdavi Damghani, M. 2008. Fundamental of Sustainable Agriculture. Jihad Daneshgahi Press of Mashhad, Iran. 307 p. (In Persian)

Mobaraki, J., Babaee, K., Mohamadi, Y., and Moradian, J. 2010. Accuracy evaluation of spatial interpolation methods to study the spatial distribution of precipitation and drawing isolite of study area in Turpentine Saghez. Applied Research Conference on Water Resources Iran. University of Kermanshah, Iran. May 23-21. 10 p. (In Persian with English Summary)

Mirmosavi, H., Mazidi, A., and Khosravi, Y. 2010. Determination of the best methods of statistics to estimate the rainfall distribution using GIS (Case study: Isfahan province). Journal of Geographical Space 10 (30): 105-120. (In Persian with English Summary)

Marofi, S., Gol-Mohamadi, G., Mohamadi, K., and Zare Abyane, H., 2009. Evaluation geostatistical estimation of the spatial distribution of rainfall in the Hamedan province in GIS. Journal of Soil Water 1 (2): 1-17. (In Persian with English Summary)

Mosaedi, A., and Kahe, M. 2008. The effect of rainfall on yields of wheat and barley in Golestan province. Journal of Agricultural Science Natural Resource. 15(4): 1-14. (In Persian with English Summary)

Mahdizadeh, M., Mahdian, M.H., and Hejam, S. 2006. Performance geostatistical methods in climatic zoning in Oromieh Lake's basin. Journal of Physics of Earth Space 23: 103-116. (In Persian with English Summary)

Mohamadi, J., 2006. Pedometey. Spatial Statistics. Pelk Publication, Iran. 453 p. (In Persian)

Mahdian, M.H. 2006. The use of geostatistics in soil science. Proceedings of the Conference on Soil, Sustainability and Environment, University of Tehran, Iran. 10 p. (In Persian)

Mehraban, A., Ghafari, A.A., Ghanbari Benjar, A., and Jalali, N. 2005. Climatic zoning for dryland winter wheat in Moghan Ardebil using GIS. Journal of Agricultural Knowledge 15: 4. 1-13 (In Persian with English Summary)

Movahed Danesh, A.A. 1996. Determine of suitable areas for rainfed cereal production, according to the monthly rainfall in East Azarbaijan, Western Azarbaijan and Ardabil. Nivar. 32. 1-14. (In Persian with English Summary)

Nasrollahi, N., Kazemi, H., and Kamkar, B. 2015. Feasibility of annual alfafa (Medicago scutellata L.) cropping in Aq-Qalla town ship (Golestan province). Journal of Agoecology 7(3): 397-411. (In Persian with English Summary)

Rahmani, M., Jami Al-Ahmadi, M., Shahidi, A., and Hadizadeh Azghandi, M. 2016. Effects of change on length of growth stages and water requirement of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and barely (Hordeum vulgar L.) (Case of study: Birjand plain). Journal of Agroecology 7 (4): 443-460. (In Persian with English Summary)

Rstegar, M.A. 1992. Dryland Farming. Barahmnd Press, Iran. 182p. (In Persian)

Sarmadian, F., and Taati, A. 2015. Agro-ecological zoning of Qazvin area for wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) using RS and GIS. Journal of Agroecology 7 (3) 368-380. (In Persian with English Summary)

Shoji, T., and Kitaura, H. 2006. Statistical and geostatistical analysis of rainfall in central Japan. Computer Geoscience 32: 1007-1024.

Tapsoba, D., Fortin, V., Anctil, F., and Hache, M. 2008. Use of the kriging technique with external drift for a map of the water equivalent of snow: application to the Gatineau River Basin. Journal of Civil Engineering 32 (1): 289-297.

Zabihi, A.R., Soleymani, K., Shabani, M., and Abroush, S. 2011. Investigate of the spatial distribution of annual precipitation using geostatistical methods (Case study: Qom province). Research Nature of Geographical Research 78:101-112. (In Persian with English Summary)

Zhang, X., and Srinivasan, R. 2009. GIS-Based spatial precipitation estimation: A comparison of geostatistical approaches. Journal of American Water Resources Association 5 (4): 894- 906.