AG-CASU: An algorithm to generate irrigation parameters and crop management strategies for the aquacrop model

This paper presents an algorithm to generate the irrigation policies and crop management configuration files for the agroclimatic risk model AquaCrop. The software determines the parameters to be modified by a stochastic method. The AG-CASU algorithm takes account of the limits determined for each variable. The algorithm can be configured to determine the number of scenarios, the number of simulations, the feasibility of each of the parameters, the initial seed file and the compliance with the AquaCrop agroclimatic risk model. In general, the agroclimatic risk models use data and information referring to climate, soil composition, temperature, rainfall, availability of water resources and characteristics of the crops to estimate the productivity of a given crop. The genetic algorithm for calculating fitnness is connected to the AquaCrop simulator, which, given a set of parameters that represent an irrigation policy, generates an estimate of biomass productivity. The algorithm was validated through a case study in special coffee crops of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia. The proposed algorithm automatically obtains the files corresponding to irrigation policies and cultivation strategies of the AquaCrop model, with coverage of the domain of the variables and with compliance to the AquaCrop software.