Sustainable agricultural water management in the Yellow River Basin, China

The Yellow River Basin, which accommodates the second longest river in China - Yellow River, covers a total area of 795,000 km(2) and plays an important role in the national agricultural production, economy, and culture. However, the Basin also faces enormous challenges related to sustainable water management in agriculture as driven by both drought and flood. In this special issue, we collected 64 articles across the Basin to improve our understanding of agricultural water management needs and demonstrate efficacies of management practices to improve the water management. The articles present exciting research on regional soil water storage and dynamics, soil moisture conservation in rain-fed agriculture, crop water demand, irrigation effects, water-nutrient coupling, water management and soil salinity, soil and nutrient losses, groundwater science and management. Findings of studies revealed: (1) the importance of mulching, drip and negative pressure irrigation, water and nutrient coupling (i.e., fertigation) in achieving both crop production and environmental protection objectives; (2) emerging research for better understanding of regional water resources and allocation of the water resources among different agricultural land uses and cropping systems, new approaches for conserving water and soil and mitigating soil salinity, system-level integrated rainfall and irrigation management, and improved knowledge on groundwater quantity and quality management; and (3) need of future research to understand processes and efficiencies of management practices in variable landscapes and cropping systems and variable and changing climates, and system-level linkages and analyses of water balance - soil water availability and conservation - water and soil losses - agricultural and environmental sustainability.