Increasing Water Use Efficiency Using Biochar: An interdisciplinary framework for sustainable agriculture under water-scarce conditions

Descripción del proyecto

Mejorar la eficiencia hídrica en la agricultura con un riego más inteligente

El sector agrícola es uno de los principales consumidores de agua en la Unión Europea (UE), pero el calor y la sequía están ejerciendo presión sobre la agricultura. Además, se desperdicia agua porque los sistemas de riego actuales no tienen en cuenta los cambios en las condiciones del suelo a lo largo del tiempo. Con el apoyo de las Acciones Marie Skłodowska-Curie, el equipo del proyecto WATERBIOCHAR desarrolla un método de riego de precisión que combina enmiendas del suelo, como el biocarbón, con una programación dinámica del riego para mejorar la eficiencia en el uso del agua y la resiliencia de los cultivos. Estudiará cómo las enmiendas del suelo afectan a la retención de agua y validará el método en condiciones agrícolas reales. En el proyecto se elaborarán directrices para los agricultores. El objetivo general es contribuir a reducir el consumo de agua y apoyar la agricultura sostenible en toda Europa.

Objetivo

European agriculture faces severe water scarcity, with more than 60% of EU land affected by drought and irrigation systems consistently underperforming, losing around one-third of applied water. A key challenge is that irrigation scheduling assumes static soil properties, despite strong evidence of seasonal variability. At the same time, soil amendments such as biochar have been shown to systematically influence soil hydraulic behavior, yet their potential remains weakly connected to irrigation optimization. This fellowship proposes a new paradigm of “amendment-informed precision irrigation,” which integrates amendment-induced soil changes with dynamic irrigation scheduling to improve resource use and resilience.

I bring over 15 years of expertise in irrigation optimization from water-scarce regions of Iran, where I developed and implemented methods that improved water use efficiency by 25–30% across more than 500 hectares and trained over 350 farmers. This experience provides a unique foundation for transferring proven practices from arid regions into temperate European systems, addressing critical gaps in combining soil amendments with precision irrigation.

The research is structured into three stages: (1) controlled-environment studies to characterize amendment impacts, (2) field validation at Harper Adams University’s Future Farm and partner sites, and (3) development of a stakeholder-informed decision framework. Using advanced modellin and analysis, the project will quantify how amendments affect soil parameters and convert this knowledge into texture-specific scheduling rules. Co-designed validation with commercial farms ensures applicability under real-world conditions.

Expected outcomes include practical protocols for amendment–irrigation integration, measurable improvements in water productivity, and decision-support tools compatible with existing infrastructure. The project directly advances the objectives of the EU Water Framework Directive, CAP enviro