AquaCrop model outputs for wheat under Semi-Arid water stress condition

Abstract

The complexity in the model evaluation could be simplified by conducting a prior sensitivity analysis (SA), which information on it is hard to come-by in the North-eastern Nigeria. The SA of the model’s output variables to its input parameters was conducted using the local sensitivity analysis (LSA) technique. An early maturing REYNA-28 wheat variety was used under water deficit conditions in the semi-arid North-eastern Nigeria. The analysis revealed that the simulation of grain yield was highly influenced by days-to-flowering (DtF), normalized water productivity (WP*), reference harvest index (HI_o), crop coefficient when the canopy is complete but prior to senescence (K_cTrx) and maximum effective rooting depth (Z_x) with sensitivity coefficients (SCs) of  1.23, 1.05, 0.83, 0.75 and 0.61, respectively.