Monitoring water fluxes in rice plots under three different cultivation methods

Italy is the leading producer of rice in Europe with over half of total production, almost totally concentrated in a large traditional paddy rice area between the Lombardy and Piedmont regions, in the north-western part of the country. In this area irrigation of rice has been traditionally carried out by flooding. The introduction of new combined irrigation and agronomic management practices (dry seeding followed by field flooding and in a full aerobic cultivation with intermittent irrigations), aiming to reduce the water consumption, can determine considerable effect on the landscape and the water cycle. With the aim to study in depth the water fluxes during the whole crop season, three experimental plots at the Ente Nazionale Risi-Rice Research Centre’s Experimental Station of Castello d’Agogna (PV) were instrumented. In each plot the following instruments have been installed: 1) a long throated flume and a double shaped (V-notch and rectangular) thin plate for superficial inputs and outputs, 3) a set of piezometers for groundwater levels, 4) one stage level gauge in each submerged field, 5) four tensiometers and moisture sensors clusters, 6) one eddy covariance station for vapour fluxes estimation. Most of the instruments were equipped with electrical sensors connected by cables to a wireless data logger that, in turn, send the data to a PC placed within ENR offices and web-connected by a LAN. In this way, besides the automatic download of data, it was possible to remotely control the devices, to quickly fix troubles, and to better plan the field trips. The management of the whole framework was done by a specifically developed software. In this paper the whole system, which presents some degree of innovation, is described in detail.