04/12/2018
The Hydrology Group of Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection (IRPI) from the National Research Council, Italy, has won the BayWa Smart Farming Challenge as part of the International Copernicus Masters competition.
By using Copernicus Sentinel-1 and -2 satellites, the Hydrology Group at IRPI developed an algorithm to provide estimates of water used for irrigation every day at the field scale.
“Around 70 percent of the world’s available water is used for agriculture”, says Luca Brocca, researcher of the Hydrology Group at IRPI. “We were previously limited in our ability to precisely determine the global water consumption and intervene accordingly – not just technically with the use of appropriate monitoring programmes, but also where water was available free of charge or withdrawn illegally. Satellite data helps us overcome these hurdles – this is a ground-breaking innovation for agricultural and food production.”
"We spent two years testing the approach in the Urmia Plain in Iran and in Spain, in combination with soil measurements", says Luca Brocca. Winning the BayWa Smart Farming Challenge now enables us to expand the practical trials to Europe and other locations. The application of the method over large areas will help people in saving and optimizing water use for agriculture and other sectors. In the near future, it will be a must as we have to exploit water resources of our planet in a sustainable way.
“Irrigation is necessary for food production and has a global impact on the economy and society”, says Jörg Migende, Head of Agricultural Sales and Digital Farming at BayWa, who presented the award. Growing confidence and trust in artificial irrigation has led to a doubling of agricultural production worldwide over the past 40 years. By contrast, over two billion people on the planet are now already affected by water scarcity – a number that will increase in future as a result of population growth and climate change. Jörg Migende: “For areas used for agriculture purposes, such as in Africa for example, we already successfully provide satellite-based solutions to precisely meet the water requirements of plants, while also preventing water losses. But, this has previously always only provided a view for the individual field. For the very first time, it will now be possible to quantify water consumption at a global level.”
Per informazioni:
Luca Brocca
CNR - Istituto di ricerca per la protezione idrogeologica
Via Madonna Alta, 126, Perugia
luca.brocca@irpi.cnr.it
3938801630
Vedi anche:
- Copernicus Master Press Release
- Journal Paper: How much water is used for irrigation? A new approach exploiting coarse resolution satellite soil moisture products
- BayWa Press Release
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