JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

In recent years, a lot of research has been done on the Aquacrop model, the results show that this model simulates the product performance for deficit irrigation conditions. But this model, like other models, is sensitive to values of independent variables (model inputs). In this research, the sensitivity of the Aquacrop model was analyzed for 4 input parameters of reference evapotranspiration, normalized water productivity, initial canopy cover percentage and maximum canopy cover for barley. Irrigation treatments included full irrigation and two deficit irrigation treatments of 80% and 60%, the experiment was done in 2014-15 growing season in the field of Abourihan College. The values of measured biomass were used as the base values for treatments. The Beven’s method (Beven et al., 1979) was used for sensitivity analysis of Aquacrop model. The results showed that the model is most sensitive to the reference crop evapotranspiration, So the sensitivity coefficient for this parameter for full irrigation treatments, 80% full irrigation and 60% full irrigation were -1.1, -1.2 and -2.3 respectively. The negative sign indicates that if the value of reference evapotranspiration input is exceeded the actual value into the model, Yield performance is simulated less than actual value. In the meantime, the higher the degree of deficit irrigation, the greater the sensitivity of the model.