Optimal Irrigation with Perfect Weekly Forecasts versus Imperfect Seasonal Forecasts

Abstract

This study examines the impact of weekly and seasonal weather forecasts on the optimal irrigation scheduling problem. We compare stochastic and deterministic simulation-optimization frameworks for irrigation scheduling using perfect weekly (deterministic) and imperfect seasonal (stochastic) forecasts. The analysis is performed on a case study of irrigated chickpeas in Kibbutz HaZore’a in northern Israel. The results demonstrate that, for the case study area and crop, the optimization with seasonal stochastic forecasts outperforms the deterministic optimization that uses perfect weekly forecast.