SMARTIES

Real-time smart irrigation management at multiple stakeholders’ level

SMARTIES

ABSTRACT

SMARTIES involves 12 European and North African partners to develop a web-gis system that optimizes irrigation and maximizes farm incomes. SMARTIES combines soil water and energy balance models, crop models, satellite data, daily and seasonal estimates of soil water content. SMARTIES operates during the irrigation season, supporting irrigation with weekly and seasonal forecasts; as well as before the irrigation season, forecasting irrigation needs and production yields to support choices on cultivation and irrigation systems.

The economic analysis, developed by the DAFNE unit involving DEIM researchers, provided both indicators at farm scale, assessing the benefits of SMARTIES for the farm, and an econometric analysis (Apparently Uncorrelated Regressions) on the possible territorial impact of this system. This last analysis defined the factors that influence irrigation in a FADN sample of Capitanata-Puglia (2011-2019) that includes farms that use only consortium water, farms that integrate with well water and farms that use only well water. Net evapotranspiration (ETN) was included among the regressors to evaluate to what extent the different farms adapt irrigation to climate trends.

The reactivity to ETN was very high in the area with abundant water availability and completely abnormal in the area with little consortium water and withdrawals from wells. In this area, a 10% reduction in ETN increases the irrigation of the following year by an extraordinary 110%, the opposite happens if ETN increases. This disproportion makes the requests of farmers to the Irrigation Consortium fluctuate widely, complicating its management. SMARTIES will be able to increase the understanding of climate variability, improving adaptation to it.

Identification code: CUP J89C19000210001

Total project cost: € 1.390.400

Total cost DAFNE: 185.700

DAFNE Role: Research Unit

Scientific Supervisor DAFNE: Prof. Gabriele Dono

Email: dono@unitus.it

Start date: 10/03/2020

End date: 09/03/2023

LINK

https://www.smarties.polimi.it/

PARTNERSHIP

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