One of the cutting edge initiative of the UMCSAWM is the research facility for soil moisture related sustainable water resources management. This facility enables the study of irrigation frequency and as a result, the actual water requirement for irrigation. This type of water studies is important for the achievement of equity among water users thereby enabling easy and efficient integrated water resources management. Precision irrigation also enables the evaluation of overloading of the root zone with water which hints on the possibility of leaching of chemicals and fertilizers to groundwater. Hence these research are very valuable to ensure sustainable development goals.
This research initiative of UMCSAWM is on the use of IoT (Internet of Things) breakthroughs for water management.
- This setting on “Precision Irrigation” uses several soil moisture sensors to determine the moisture in the root zone of an agricultural crop and then provide water to fulfil the requirements of the plant growth without undue loading of the environment
- The setting utilizes cloud based, wireless, low energy consuming technologies providing the plant-water status and control of solenoid water valves through a remote personnel computer linked via internet
- This Hybrid research facility is also intended to experiment between expensive research grade sensors and low cost freely available sensors for rain, soil moisture and water valve controls to compare the difference in water use and associated costs