Case study · Water resources · Modeling

Can groundwater sustain restrictions from the irrigation system?

A private agricultural property in southwest Portugal grows berries in soilless media under tunnels — irrigation is essential, and the regional reservoir that supplies surface water has been running low after roughly a decade of below-average rainfall, bringing water restrictions. Groundwater and rainfall could help, but how much?

What we did

Field work — shallow wells, a deep borehole, a pumping test and ERT geophysics — established the aquifer system. On top of it we built a daily numerical water-balance model: soil storage driven by measured and remote-sensing rainfall and MODIS reference evapotranspiration, coupled to a reservoir and mixing-tank module simulating the property’s water infrastructure — from recharge to the blend of groundwater and grid supply in irrigation.