AgroHydroLogos: development and testing of a spatially distributed agro-hydrological model on the basis of ArcGIS.

In this paper the development and testing of AgroHydroLogos is presented, which is a new spatially distributed, continuous hydrological model. The model was developed as an extension of the ESRI ArcGIS Geographical Information Systems’ software package. It calculates, on a daily basis, the main hydrological balance components, and other important parameters, including plants water stress and irrigation water needs. Its conceptual scheme was based on simplified but well established methods for the simulation of the various hydrological processes. The hydrological model is being developed using object oriented programming techniques, and its Graphical User Interface is very easy to use and it follows the standard ArcGIS software extensions form. The model was tested in a Mediterranean experimental watershed in Greece. The final conclusion is that AgroHydroLogos can produce valuable information concerning agricultural water management; it can also produce important information for the assessment of climate change impacts and for the evaluation of various adaptation and mitigation strategies.