Precision Irrigation System Designs That Reduce Energy and Irrigation Water Use By Soil Water Retention Technology.

Expansion of irrigated cropping systems needed to meet the food and cellulosic biomass demands for soil organic matter and renewable liquid energy, requires new technologies designed to improve irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) within the water-energy-food nexus. Lysimeter and field experiments in several states and countries have conclusively demonstrated spatially installed subsurface water retaining technology (SWRT) membranes improve water conservation by doubling soil water holding capacities in the plant root zone while increasing plant production of tomatoes, cucumbers and corn by 89%, 44% and 239%, respectively. SWRT membranes enhance and maintain homogeneous distributions of water and nutrients in rhizospheres. SWRT, combined with fresh water irrigation, also reduced salinity in the root zone to sandy soils during a single tomato crop.  Using HYDRUS-2D models we identified water retention mechanisms facilitating the doubling of soil water content in plant root zones of sands converted to sustainable agricultural production. This report outlines the integration of the engineering Evolutionary/Multi-objective/Optimization (EMO) model with the HYDRUS-2D hydropedology model enabling the identification of soil water permeability systems for optimal water-energy-food production requiring less water. Parallel computing platforms within these two models provide self-training, by the fuzzy logic options, within these hybridized models. These trade-off solutions enable us to identify additional economic, environmental and social uncertainties needed for multi-criteria decisions useful to soil scientists and irrigation engineers. Enhancements of these understandings and designs by the inter-dependent critical infrastructure systems (ICIs) provide options for utilizing specific prescription management practices which advance soil and plant resilience to climatic disturbances. These models are enabling us to identify additional prescription technologies and management systems for converting highly permeable marginal soils into long-term irrigated sustainable agricultural production landscapes.