Abstract
Experience in China over recent decades has shown that RWH cannot only provide water for domestic use but also for supplemental irrigation. As already noted, RWH systems are mini-sized water resource schemes. The amount of rainwater stored in a RWH system is generally very limited requiring very efficient use. RWH-based irrigation is therefore a special kind of water-saving irrigation. It uses much less water than conventional water-saving irrigation and is more appropriately called “low rate irrigation” (LORI). Investigations have shown that LORI water supplied to the crop only consists of 10–15 % of the total crop water consumption over the whole growing season. Most of the water used by the crop is from natural rainfall. Some experts doubt that such a small amount of water can have any effect on the crop yield.
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© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore and Science Press, Beijing
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Zhu, Q. (2015). Rainwater Harvesting Techniques for Irrigation. In: Zhu, Q., Gould, J., Li, Y., Ma, C. (eds) Rainwater Harvesting for Agriculture and Water Supply. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-964-6_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-964-6_5
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