MAR 13 2015
Contribution of monitoring systems for an agriculture closer to technologies - Part II
Water was always associated with the development of civilizations and its efficient management leads her to contribute to sustainable schemes. Agriculture is one of the major industry sectors that consume a good percentage of water.
Agriculture is one of the major industry sectors that consume a good percentage of water. For example, in Portugal, the National Institute of Statistics presents data referring that agriculture is responsible for consuming about 80% of the 20% of total water resources (surface and groundwater) we have available.
Combined with this fact is the waste of this resource caused by inefficient irrigation systems and inaccurate and lack of monitoring of water consumption of agricultural cultures. One of the major challenges lies in the application of precision systems capable of measuring spatial and temporal development of intelligent solutions for cultures irrigation.
The main objectives of these systems are contributing to the increase in production efficiency and reduce the environmental impact caused by the agricultural activity. By focusing in monitoring systems of environmental factors, we can divide them into four application areas: air, water, soil and crops. We address in this article the second area: the water.
Our main objective in the article published by Agrotec – Revista Técnico-Científica Agrícola, is to present innovative solutions for real-time monitoring of the parameters of any cultures for application/to use in irrigation systems.
For instance, the AgriSENSAct Project main goal was the development and production of an integrated modular probe (AgriProbe) that will be used in the implementation of Wireless sensor network (WSNs) both for precise irrigation and site specific fertilisation of nitrates. The AgriProbe product will consist of a modular system incorporating several sensorial modules, an energy harvesting and supply module and a data acquisition and transmission module.
Another good example is WaterBee Project which is a complete, resilient, cost-effective Smart Irrigation and Water Management system that empowers growers, vineyards, golf clubs, public authorities and landscape managers to optimise their commercial and sustainable environmental operations. The system has been installed and is in use at 14 reference sites across Europe in Estonia, Malta, Italy, Spain, Sweden & the UK.
Read the full article in Portuguese here, and find out more about other innovative solutions!
