Development of a Pilot Soil-Water Balance Model for Determination of Probability of a Working Day for Rice Harvesting

The probability of a working day is the ratio of workable days to the total available days in a working season for the intended operation. Soil moisture is the most important limiting factor in terms of rice harvesting. Therefore, to determine the PWD for this operation, a model was developed to estimate the soil moisture based on soil-water balance. To calibrate and validate the model, the soil moisture was monitored in the paddy field of the University of Guilan during the rice harvest seasons in 2017 and 2018. The calibration process was performed by applying a decreasing ratio, i.e. the senescence factor (α), at a daily evapotranspiration rate compared to that of previous day. At the validation stage, the simulated soil moisture contents were compared with measured values, which indicated a good model accuracy (NRMSE = 6.53%) of the soil moisture estimation. Therefore, this model can be used for the rice harvesting operation feasibility evaluation and PWD calculation.