FIGARO FLEXIBLE AND PRECISE IRRIGATION PLATFORM TO IMPROVE FARM-SCALE WATER PRODUCTIVITY

The core results of the FIGARO project: the Platform

International FIGARO Conference, 19 September 2016, Brussels, Belgium

Lior DoronNetafim

• FIGARO introduction

• FIGARO objectives

• The FIGARO platform

• Challenges

• What’s next

Agenda

FIGARO - Flexible and PrecIse IrriGation PlAtform to Improve FaRm Scale Water PrOductivity

– A project of the FP7 of the EU (http://www.figaro-irrigation.net/ )

– The project was chosen for funding following contact with the FP7 callKBBE.2012.1.1-03: Precision technologies to improve irrigation management and increase water productivity in major water-demanding crops in Europe

– The project consortium includes 17 members. • 7 universities

• 6 SME

• 3 industrial and others

– Netafim leads this project and acts as the “Project coordinator”

– Project duration – 4 years• 3 years of R&D

• 1 year of demonstration

– Total project budget – 8 M€

– Total Grant from the EU – 6 M€

3

4

No. Participant Organisation Name Main Activity Web site Country

1 Netafim Software Dev. www.netafim.com Israel

2 Aarhus University (AU) DSS models www.au.dk/en/ Denmark

3 Hydrologic Research (HR) Software Dev. http://hydrologic.com/ Netherlands

4 Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPVLC) Remote sensing www.upv.es Spain

5 C-Tech Innovation (C-Tech) Sensors Dev. www.ctechinnovation.com UK

6 Orev (OREV) Field tests http://orev.dk/ Denmark

7 Hidromod Software Dev. www.hidromod.pt/ Portugal

8 AgroSens Sensors Dev. Denmark

9 Technical University of Lisbon (IST) Software Dev. www.utl.pt Portugal

10 University of Bologna (UNIBO) DSS assessment www.eng.unibo.it Italy

11Consorzio di bonifica per il Canale EmilianoRomagnolo (CER)

Irrigation policies www.consorziocer.it/ Italy

12 Technion Israel Institute of Technology (IIT) DSS assessment www1.technion.ac.il Israel

13 Democritus University of Thrace (DUTH) DSS models www.duth.gr Greece

14Regional Union of Municipalities of EasternMacedonia-Thrace (PED-AMT)

Assimilation Greece

15 University of Twente (UT) DSS assessment www.utwente.nl Netherlands

16Food and Agriculture Organization of the UnitedNations (FAO)

Training www.fao.org Italy

17 Agora Partners (Agora) management www.agora-partners.com Israel

FIGARO’s partners

– Significantly improve water productivity at the farm level through the development of a cost-effective, precision irrigation management platform

– Analyse the external barriers that prevent growers today from using management systems and cope with them.

– End with a sustainable platform that can be very easily adapted to the local farm’s needs and can be upgraded and updated after the project ends.

– Extend the system’s impact out of the European market and to many more crops

FIGARO Aims & Objectives

FIGARO platform aims to:

Combine proven models with proven sensor technology

Be user friendly due to its simple user interface and predefined data

Its open platform nature for local adaptation and setup

Provide easy operation & maintenance through process automation & connection to actuators

Offer different levels of usage, from simple to complex

The concept’s components are all exists with two main drawbacks:

– Static data, no connection to the real world

– Very hard to use, experts’ oriented systems

The FIGARO concept

Use models for better irrigation

Crop model

Hydraulic model

Irrigation plan for the next 7 days

Climate data

Crop data

Soil data

Irrigation policy

Water content

Energy parameters

Hydraulic design

Irrigation demands

Crop developmentPredicted yield

1. Feed the platform with real world data and feedback

2. Run the platform automatically with easy to use UI

3. Make the platform flexible and open for different components

Crop model

Hydraulic model

Irrigation plan for the next 7 days

Climate data

Crop data

Soil data

Irrigation policy

Water content

Energy parameters

Hydraulic design

Irrigation demands

Crop developmentPredicted yield

The FIGARO concept

3 points to take care for

Crop model

Hydraulic model

Climate data

Crop data

Soil data

Irrigation policy

Water content

Energy parameters

Hydraulic design

Irrigation demands

Crop developmentPredicted yield

Feed the platform with real world data and feedback

WiseUp application

Water meter & Soil moisture sensor

Weather station

Weather Forecast

Static

StaticFrom CAD

Remote sensing

FIGARO system deployment

AquasafeHidromod

uManageNetafim

HydroNetHydrologic research

EpaNetPolytechnic of

Valencia

AquaCropFAO

WiseUpCER

Application for easily

define irrigation

policy

Crop management application by

Netafim

Big data management application

Weather forecast server

Crop model for

herbaceous crops

Energy optimizing model for irrigation

systems

FIGARO DSS running (1)

AquasafeHidromod

uManageNetafim

HydroNetHydrologic research

EpaNetPolytechnic of

Valencia

AquaCropFAO

1 – Aquasafe is triggered to run FIGARO DSS module for a specific irrigation block

FIGARO DSS running (2)

AquasafeHidromod

uManageNetafim

HydroNetHydrologic research

EpaNetPolytechnic of

Valencia

AquaCropFAO

2 – Aquasafe Askes uManage for most up to date sensors data uManage return most updated data

FIGARO DSS running (3)

AquasafeHidromod

uManageNetafim

HydroNetHydrologic research

EpaNetPolytechnic of

Valencia

AquaCropFAO

3 – Aquasafe Askes HidroNet for most up to date weather forecast dataHidroNet return most updated data

FIGARO DSS running (4)

AquasafeHidromod

uManageNetafim

HydroNetHydrologic research

EpaNetPolytechnic of

Valencia

AquaCropFAO

4 – Aquasafe Update AquaCrop input files with most updated dataAquasafe runs AquaCrop and get run’s results

FIGARO DSS running (5)

AquasafeHidromod

uManageNetafim

HydroNetHydrologic research

EpaNetPolytechnic of

Valencia

AquaCropFAO

5 – Aquasafe update EpaNet with irrigation demands,EpaNet runs and return Irrigation recommended plan for next 7 days.

FIGARO DSS running (6)

AquasafeHidromod

uManageNetafim

HydroNetHydrologic research

EpaNetPolytechnic of

Valencia

AquaCropFAO

6 – Aquasafe update uManage with AquaCrop & EpaNet resaults

FIGARO DSS running (7)

AquasafeHidromod

uManageNetafim

HydroNetHydrologic research

EpaNetPolytechnic of

Valencia

AquaCropFAO

7 – uManage presents results to the user and optionally download new irrigation plan to the controller

FIGARO user interface

• As basic parameters like:

– Irrigation block’s location and size

– Crops per irrigation block

– Soil type per irrigation block

– Sensors network

– Hydraulic system network

Should be exist already in the crop management system, no need to enter this data especially for the FIGARO DSS.

• Moreover, data integrity and data consistency are kept

• The GIS oriented user interface lets the user to define all GIS aspects in a very intuitive way

• The layers concept let the system presents results and information in a very faxable way, fits to the user preference.

FIGARO user interface

All AquaCrop results are presented automatically on one form

FIGARO user interface

Zoom in view

FIGARO user interface

From mobile application

FIGARO platform was developed and tested in field environment with the following configuration

Site Crops Models

Denmark Potato AquaCrop, Daisy

Italy Tomato, Maize AquaCrop

Spain Citrus ETc, EpaNet

Portugal Maize AquaCrop, Mohind

Bulgaria Maize AquaCrop

Greece Cotton AquaCrop

Israel Citrus ETc

• Data integrity is essential issue for the success of the system

• The conflict between being precise versus easy user interface

• Business model to support the easy to use challenge. The agronomic support must be a part of the channel.

• The challenge of the open platform and the so many interfaces to external devices where no practical standards are available.

Challenges

Figaro has coped with these challenges in order to make precise irrigation a common practice of any grower

• Expand the users of the system to as many growers segments as could be (as beta and commercial)

• Expand the crop models to fruit trees as well

• Integrate the hydraulic model with the energy saving

• Add more crop models including fertigation

• Connection to big data soil and climate resources

• Add the economic optimization module

• Expand the monitoring and control interfaces

What’s next?

Thank you

Lior Doron: lior.doron@netafim.com

http://www.figaro-irrigation.net/