Smart Irrigation Techniques for Water Resource Management

Introduction

Water scarcity already affects every continent. Around 1/5^th of the world's population live in areas of physical scarcity, and almost one-quarter of the world's population, face economic water shortage (CWAC, 2014). Agriculture is the backbone of the economic base of each country of the world. The daily need for food shows the importance of agricultural development. Food and agriculture are the largest consumers of water, requiring one hundred times more than we use for personal needs. One of the main challenges in agricultural activities is irrigation. As the global climate decreases the source of water throughout the world, it is necessary to take steps for preserving it. The extent of irrigated land has more than doubled, increasing from 139 to 301 million hectares between 1961 and 2009 (FAO, 2011a). However traditional irrigation management is done by the people itself. It requires the presence and continuous monitoring of irrigation by the farmers in the field area. An early canal irrigation system had also found in The Indus Valley civilization in Pakistan & North India (from 2600 BCE). Large-scale agriculture was used for the purpose of irrigation. Sophisticated irrigation & storage systems were developed, including the reservoirs built at Girnar in 3000 BCE (Rodda and Ubertini, 2004). Soil moisture is the primary required information in achieving optimum water requirements for the crops (Schroder, 2006). In 2001, agricultural uses accounted for about 5%, 10%, and 17% of the internal renewable water resources of Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia, respectively. Asia has the largest proportion of global freshwater withdrawal for agriculture about 73%, (Hillel et al., 2008). The concept of this chapter came due to the global climate shifts because of various reasons such as global warming; excessive air pollutants etc. causing lack of seasonal rains and depletion of groundwater table levels. Currently, most of the Indian farmers cultivate their land depending on seasonal rains and water through bore wells. To combat these issues intelligent/ smart irrigation is thought by using scientific and technical methods. Farmer controls the electric water motor using mobile phone without going in paddy field. If the water level reaches at required level, automatically motor will be off without confirmation of farmer (Uddin, 2012). The objective of smart irrigation technologies are to provide water delivery in a programmed manner to the crops to ensure all the crops have enough water for their healthy growth, to reduce water wastage in irrigation, and to minimize the economic cost for the users.