Raising temperature and increased drought events induced by a changing climate have increased the need for efficient use of natural resources and energy supplies. Producing sufficient food and fibers for the growing population with changing consumption patterns from ever decreasing resource base requires strategic plans for efficient use of natural resources such as water, nutrients, and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). Water is considered as the second most limiting factor after land to increase food and fiber production. It is essential for various chemical and physiological reactions in plants and provides a medium where most cellular functions take place. Soil water-deficit significantly reduces crop yield and productivity through its adverse effects on nutrient uptake, net assimilation, and radiation use efficiency and subsequently on dry matter accumulation and production. Soil water affects nutrient transformation from unavailable to available form or vice versa, and thereby the total uptake amount. It also influences the availability of applied nutrients and efficiency through its effect on various nutrient loss mechanisms such as volatilization, nitrification, and/or urease hydrolysis. Soil nutrients and PAR are also key factors in crop production. Plants usually suffer from nutrient deficiencies and more importantly a reduction in net photosynthetic assimilation rate under water stress. Better inception of PAR is needed for higher biomass production and grain yield, which is also hampered under water-limited environments. The situation is expected to be further intensified in a future changing climate, which urgently calls for efficient adaptation strategies to mitigate the negative impacts associated with these changes on crop production, especially in dry areas. Therefore, improving the efficiency of natural resources use continues to escalate as a topic of interest for crop and soil scientists. This review presents an outline of defining water use efficiency, nitrogen use efficiency, and radiation use efficiency as well as their relationship under water-limited environments to identify agronomic- and physiologically-improved strategies for enhancing water, nutrient (nitrogen), and radiation use by field crops.

Improving water use efficiency, nitrogen use efficiency, and radiation use efficiency in field crops under drought stress: A review

The components of the land surface energy balance respond to periodic incoming radiation forcing with different amplitude and phase characteristics. Evaporative fraction (EF), the ratio of latent heat to available energy at the land surface, supposedly isolates surface control (soil moisture and vegetation) from radiation and turbulent factors. EF is thus supposed to be a diagnostic of the surface energy balance that is constant or self-preserved during daytime. If this holds, EF can be an effective way to estimate surface characteristics from temperature and energy flux measurements. Evidence for EF diurnal self-preservation is based on limited-duration field measurements. The daytime EF self-preservation using both long-term measurements and a model of the soil‐vegetation‐atmosphere continuum is reexamined here. It is demonstrated that EF is rarely constant and that its temporal power spectrum is wide; thus emphasizing the role of all diurnal frequencies associated with reduced predictability in its daylight response. Oppositely, surface turbulent heat fluxes are characterized by a strong response to the principal daily frequencies (daily and semi-daily) of the solar radiative forcing. It is shown that the phase lag and bias between the turbulent flux components of the surface energy balance are key to the shape of the daytime EF. Therefore, an understanding of the physical factors that affect the phase lag and bias in the response of the components of the surface energy balance to periodicradiativeforcing is needed.A linearizedmodel of the soil‐vegetation‐atmosphere continuumis used that can be solved in terms of harmonics to explore the physical factors that determine the phase characteristics. The dependency of these phase and offsets on environmental parameters—friction velocity, water availability, solar radiation intensity, relative humidity, and boundary layer entrainment—is then analyzed using the model that solves the dynamics of subsurface and atmospheric boundary layer temperatures and heat fluxes in a continuum. Additionally, the asymptotical diurnal lower limit of EF is derived as a function of these surface parameters and shown to be an important indicator of the self-preservation value when the conditions (also identified) for such behavior are present.

The Diurnal Behavior of Evaporative Fraction in the Soil–Vegetation–Atmospheric Boundary Layer Continuum

Modelling the effect of mulching on soil heat transfer, water movement and crop growth for ground cover rice production system

Ground cover rice production system (GCRPS), i.e., paddy soils being covered by thin plastic films with soil moisture being maintained nearly saturated status, is a promising technology as increased yields are achieved with less irrigation water. However, increased soil aeration and temperature under GCRPS may cause pollution swapping in greenhouse gas (GHG) from CH4 to N2O emissions. A 2-year experiment was performed, taking traditional rice cultivation as a reference, to assess the impacts of N-fertilizer placement methods on CH4, N2O and NO emissions and rice yields under GCRPS. Averaging across all rice seasons and N-fertilizer treatments, the GHG emissions for GCRPS were 1973 kg CO2-eq ha−1 (or 256 kg CO2-eq Mg−1), which is significantly lower than that of traditional cultivation (4186 kg CO2-eq ha−1or 646 kg CO2-eq Mg−1). Furthermore, if urea was placed at a 10–15 cm soil depth instead of broadcasting, the yield-scaled GHG emissions from GCRPS were further reduced from 377 to 222 kg CO2-eq Mg−1, as N2O emissions greatly decreased while yields increased. Urea deep placement also reduced yield-scaled NO emissions by 54%. Therefore, GCRPS with urea deep placement is a climate- and environment-smart management, which allows for maximal rice yields at minimal GHG and NO emissions.

Urea deep placement reduces yield-scaled greenhouse gas (CH 4 and N 2 O) and NO emissions from a ground cover rice production system

Benefit of using biodegradable film on rice grain yield and N use efficiency in ground cover rice production system

Water consumption and water-saving characteristics of a ground cover rice production system

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Water consumption and water-saving characteristics of a ground cover rice production system