WATER SECURITYNew Tool Optimizes Irrigation

By Adam Hadhazy

Published 10 May 2023

A new tool for designing and managing irrigation for farms advances the implementation of smart agriculture, an approach that leverages data and modern technologies to boost crop yields while conserving natural resources.

A new tool for designing and managing irrigation for farms advances the implementation of smart agriculture, an approach that leverages data and modern technologies to boost crop yields while conserving natural resources.

The tool rapidly estimates water loss from soils due to “evapotranspiration,” a process that involves the evaporation of water into the atmosphere and the uptake of water by plants. Compared to state-of-the-art ways of getting such evapotranspiration estimates, the new Stanford modeling tool works 100 times faster while maintaining high levels of accuracy.

In practice, the tool could dramatically reduce the time needed to devise strategic, efficient irrigation schedules that best position watering and sensing equipment across entire farms. On a narrower, field-by-field basis, the tool could even crunch data fast enough to adjust irrigation on the fly, in near real time, as weather conditions change.

“Evapotranspiration is a critical piece of information for designing efficient irrigation systems,” said Weiyu Li, a PhD candidate in energy science and engineering and lead author of a study describing the findings in Water Resources Research. Li is a Siebel Scholar in the class of 2023 and is currently the first and only recipient at Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.

Overall, the research is a step forward for smart agriculture, which leverages the power of modern technologies and approaches such as big data and the Internet of Things to boost crop yields while conserving natural resources.

“With this study, we’re helping to deliver on the promise of smart agriculture to continue sustainably feeding billions of people worldwide and preserving our planet for future generations,” said senior study author Daniel Tartakovsky, a professor of energy science and engineering who is also Li’s advisor.

Simple Vertical, Complex Horizontal
Conventional accounting for evapotranspiration has relied on what researchers call the vertical-flow assumption. In this modeling approach, the water applied during irrigation is treated as only moving straight down into the soil. The fact that the water can (and does) flow in horizontal directions is ignored. Given that smart agriculture requires processing significant amounts of data, the vertical-flow assumption has been used as a sort of computational shortcut. The approach is sufficient for some irrigation modeling needs but the results it gives can be vastly improved upon, Li said.