How Smart Irrigation System in Agriculture Sector Helps Reducing Water Wastage?

The world’s population is constantly increasing, and the available water resources are becoming lesser. Nearly 70% of globally available water resources are used for irrigation purposes in the agriculture sector out of which a substantial portion of water gets wasted.

This wastage of water is largely due to inefficient irrigation techniques.

Upgrading to advanced technologies such as smart irrigation systems can be a great way to counter this issue of wastage of water.

This article talks in-depth about smart irrigation systems and how IoT based sensors helps in the functioning of the irrigation system.

Introduction to Smart Irrigation System

Smart irrigation refers to a practice of watering plants in a controlled manner with the aim of reducing water wastage and maintaining the proper growth of the plants.

The smart irrigation system helps in automating the watering process which results in decreasing the irrigation cost by reducing water bills.

Also, it allows farmers to understand the crop and soil moisture content and get proper notifications about the watering timing to provide long-term benefits.

Working of Smart Irrigation System

Smart irrigation systems work with an integration of advanced technologies with conventional sprinklers attached with nozzles that help in better controlled watering.

The irrigation system gathers information related to the requirements of water for plants with the help of sensors (more on this explained later in this article) and passes it to the smart sprinklers which start working automatically.

As per the collected sensor data and weather information, the irrigation system determines the best time for watering, the amount of water to be used, and how long the field needs to be watered on their own.

The irrigation system also takes care of other issues such as leakage or blockage of the pipes for proper flow of the water.

Benefits of Smart Irrigation System

Following are some of the benefits of using the smart irrigation system:

• Cost saving options due to minimized water wastage
• Lesser human efforts
• A proper view of different soil characteristics, including nutrients and moisture contents
• Smart notifications option in case of abnormalities
• Better long-term landscape health
• Use of Internet of Things (IoT) technology for more effective smart irrigation

To achieve the above-mentioned benefits, smart irrigation systems take the help of IoT-based sensors. These sensors are placed in the agriculture field that send out real-time information to different applications of the irrigation system which then operate accordingly.

Wireless networks such as long range (LoRa) are used for powering IoT-based sensors for the proper flow of information to the irrigation system from agriculture fields.

The complete irrigation system can get managed by the user through a custom mobile application or cloud-based information.

Market Insight of Smart Irrigation

The global smart irrigation market is supposed to witness high growth in the coming years because of the escalation towards automation and mechanization in the agriculture sector.

Some of the leading companies in this market are Irrigation Systems Ltd., Orbit Irrigation Products, Hunter Industries, Scotts Irrigation & Landscaping, and HydroPoint.

As per BIS Research, the global smart irrigation market is estimated to touch $2.75 billion by 2026, with a CAGR of 13.69%. This increase in market demand is mainly attributed to the active adoption of smart irrigation system by farmers and companies in agriculture business.

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North America is expected to dominate the global smart irrigation market due to

Types of IoT Sensors Used in Smart Irrigation System

Depending on the type of data requirement different types of IoT sensors can be used in the smart irrigation systems.

Below are some of the commonly used IoT sensors in the smart irrigation system:

• Soil Sensors

Soil-based IoT sensors are mainly used for collecting relevant information related to crucial parameters in the agriculture field such as the availability of water and moisture in the soils.

These sensors are placed at multiple places in the agricultural fields and constantly pass the collected data to the smart irrigation system.

• Weather Sensors

Weather sensors are also known as evapotranspiration (ET) sensors and are mainly used for measuring environmental conditions such as water evaporation and plant transpiration. It helps farmers in predicting the need for irrigation in a better manner.

• Plant Sensos

Plant-based sensors are yet new but have promising capabilities in measuring the need of water for the plants.

It is attached to the plant or fruit’s stem for capturing the changes such as shrinking or swelling and passes a warning to the farmers for taking necessary steps.

Conclusion

The agriculture sector is the biggest consumer of water worldwide which is also responsible for huge water wastage. The adoption of smart irrigation system is set to provide a better solution to agriculture sector with the focus of providing better crop quality.

This irrigation system will also help farmers in getting better understanding about the plant health conditions and take better steps.