Smart agriculture team from the Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning (IARRP) — under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences — recently made major progress in an important area, outlined in a study conducted in collaboration with the University of Hong Kong and Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands. The progress has been made in the path to optimizing irrigation and cropping systems in the wheat-maize rotation of the North China Plain, to ensure sustainable groundwater use and enhance crop productivity. The academic journal Agricultural Systems, under the title of “Impacts of optimized irrigation and diversified crop rotations on groundwater sustainability and productivity in the North China Plain”.

In the North China plain, the traditional winter wheat-summer maize rotation system  (WM), has achieved high yields — but it has also caused continuous groundwater level declines and low resources using efficiency of resources. Currently, measures such as optimizing irrigation systems and adjusting cropping systems have been implemented to enhance the resource utilization efficiency of the system. However, the comprehensive impact of combining optimized irrigation and adjusted cropping systems on the water-groundwater dynamics within the WM rotation system remains unclear. To address these issues, the study proposed a scenario analysis scheme based on the SWAP-WOFOST model. It systematically evaluated the impact on water resource utilization and productivity through hydrological, agronomic, nutritional and economic indicators under three cropping systems. 

Compared to traditional water resource management schemes under the conventional wheat-maize rotation, systems dominated by leguminous crops— specifically the P-WM and S-WM rotations (P: peanut, S: soybean)— demonstrated superior hydrological performance, significantly reducing evapotranspiration (ETa) by 26.6% to 27.4% and mitigating annual groundwater level declines by some 1.14 meters and 1.13 m, respectively. Of these, the P-WM scheme performed the best, with equivalent water productivity and economic output increasing by 20.3% and 72.1%, respectively, while reducing the water footprint by 17.0%. Both diversified systems improved water resources use efficiency while balancing yields, proteins and the economic output. Comprehensive evaluation results indicated that the P-WM rotation was the best solution for balancing productivity and groundwater sustainability. 

This study indicates that the synergistic effect of integrating leguminous crop rotation with optimized irrigation can alleviate groundwater level declines, while ensuring economic and nutritional output — effectively promoting sustainable agricultural development in the North China Plain. It’s believed that the findings provide a pattern that can be replicated in other water-scarce regions. 

An illustration of the scenario analysis framework and the key findings

The first author is Dr Wang Bo, a postdoctoral researcher from the smart agriculture team at the IARRP, and researcher Li Wenjuan is the corresponding author. The study was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2024YFD2301100) and the National Key Laboratory for Efficient Utilization of Dryland and Semi-Arid Farmland. 

Link：https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2026.104894