On the gap between crop and land surface models: comparing irrigation and other land surface estimates from AquaCrop and Noah-MP over the Po Valley

Busschaert, Louise; Bechtold, Michel; Modanesi, Sara; Massari, Christian; Raes, Dirk; Kumar, Sujay V.; De Lannoy, Gabriëlle J. M.

doi:10.5194/hess-30-2579-2026

Articles | Volume 30, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-2579-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-2579-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 30, issue 9

Research article

|

04 May 2026

Research article |

| 04 May 2026

On the gap between crop and land surface models: comparing irrigation and other land surface estimates from AquaCrop and Noah-MP over the Po Valley

Louise Busschaert, Michel Bechtold, Sara Modanesi, Christian Massari, Dirk Raes, Sujay V. Kumar, and Gabriëlle J. M. De Lannoy

Data sets

Dry Matter Productivity 2014-2026 (raster 300 m), global, 10-daily – version 1 Copernicus Land Monitoring Service https://doi.org/10.2909/67797662-7edc-4a29-b93b-a58af384b137

CORINE Land Cover 2018 (vector/raster 100 m), Europe, 6-yearly Copernicus Land Monitoring Service https://doi.org/10.2909/960998c1-1870-4e82-8051-6485205ebbac

Daily evaporation product - Po basin (Version v1) P. Bartkowiak et al. https://doi.org/10.48784/7ABDBD94-DDFE-48DF-AB09-341AD2F52E47

SMAP-Derived 1-km Downscaled Surface Soil Moisture Product. (NSIDC-0779, Version 1) V. Lakshmi and B. Fang https://doi.org/10.5067/U8QZ2AXE5V7B

Model code and software

AquaCrop v7.0 in NASA's Land Information System Louise Busschaert et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19810040

source code and datasets for gmd-2021-98 S. de Roos et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4770738

Short summary

Two models, AquaCrop (crop model) and Noah-MP (land surface model), were compared estimating irrigation in Italy's Po Valley. Noah-MP simulated higher water use (434 mm/yr) than AquaCrop (268 mm/yr), mainly due to extra water losses like runoff. Once losses were accounted for, both aligned with basin-scale reports of around 500 to 600 mm/yr. The study highlights how complex irrigation modeling is, and the need for better observational data to validate results.