Cropwat is a piece of software designed for the calculation of the right amount of water needed for the irrigation of crop fields. The calculation strategy is based on two publications of the same developer: the "Crop Evapotranspiration" guide that presents a procedure for the calculation of the efficient quantity of crop water, and "Yield response to water", which presents an analysis on crop yield as a result of water use.
In order for Cropwat to provide efficient and correct data, the user needs to insert data about the evapotranspiration process, i.e. the quantity of water evaporated from the soil and eliminated by plants into the atmosphere. The data can be entered manually by filling in the forms provided by the inlays from the left side of the main window. Therefore, users will have to observe weather changes and have access to information regarding the climate (temperature, humidity, wind, sun, etc.), as well as other parameters such as the monthly throughfall quantities and soil characteristics.
After these forms have been completed, the tool will provide information about the necessary water quantity in the "Crop Water Requirements" window and the irrigation schedule.
To sum up, Cropwat is a valuable application for farmers or crop and soil specialists that can supply detailed data about the necessary quantity of water necessary to obtain maximum crop yields.
v8.0.1.1 [Mar 18, 2008]
monthly, decade and daily input of climatic data for calculation of reference evapotranspiration (ETo)
backward compatibility to allow use of data from CLIMWAT database
possibility to estimate climatic data in the absence of measured values
decade and daily calculation of crop water requirements based on updated calculation algorithms including adjustment of crop-coefficient values
calculation of crop water requirements and irrigation scheduling for paddy & upland rice, using a newly developed procedure to calculate water requirements including the land preparation period
interactive user adjustable irrigation schedules
daily soil water balance output tables
easy saving and retrieval of sessions and of user-defined irrigation schedules
graphical presentations of input data, crop water requirements and irrigation schedules
easy import/export of data and graphics through clipboard or ASCII text files
extensive printing routines, supporting all windows-based printers
context-sensitive help system
Multilingual interface and help system: English, Spanish, French and Russian
