Modelling Winter Wheat Soil Water Balance in Changing Climatic Conditions

In the past decades, the climatic conditions in the region have changed, showing extreme weather events and gradual changes in precipitation and evapotranspiration.The historical climatic data are calculated to average, but the extreme dry (2000) and wet (2014) years are also taken into consideration.The sediment's hydraulic conductivity is calculated using the Hydrus 1D model and measured on-site to establish the assessment model for various crops that will be easily simulated.The calculated vs. experimental values showed good agreement for the selected location of Srbovac village.Other parameters, such as soil moisture field capacity, soil moisture at the wilting point, maximum infiltration flux, and maximum drainage flux to the saturated zone, were calculated, too.Finding the adequate crop water requirement for changed soil water balance is done by using the FAO CROPWAT program.Three different soil textures were used for calculations: loam, sandy loam, and silty loam.Soil moisture at field capacity is found to be 220 mm/m, the maximum infiltration flux per day was 250 mm, and the maximum drainage flux to the saturated zone was 5 mm.The soil water balance was calculated by CROPWAT and presented for each month.In the period from 1961-1999, historical data, the total average precipitation was 911 mm, reference evapotranspiration (ETo) was 879 mm, and actual evapotranspiration (ETa) was 375 mm, but crop evapotranspiration of winter wheat (ETc-Crop) for the same period was 400 mm, that proves good climatic conditions for the selected crop.In the period from 2000-2023, the average climatic conditions were used for Crop-Water balance calculation, and the total precipitation was 712 mm, whereas ETo was 924 mm, ETa was 477 mm, and ETc-Crop of winter wheat for the same period was 641 mm, with 166 mm crop deficit in April, May, and June.