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Abstract:

This research discusses applications of irrigation with the use of modern sensors. It is
divided into two parts, the first will discuss sensors of soil moisture and explains their
operation method, uses and the current common specifications, while the second part will
study knowing the content of soil moisture through thermal images.

Introduction:
Food is a basic and essential human requirement. It is expected that the limited lands and
insufficient water resources to negatively affect the expected increase in demand for food
crops during the next 50 years, taking into account the scenarios, the assumptions and
models used. Different expectations were made for food and agricultural production and
relevant irrigation needs. Forecasts of the food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
indicated that the rate of global consumption growth of agricultural products increased by
1.1% per year from 2005 to 2050. To meet this anticipated global demand, the
agricultural production should be increased by 60% from 2005 to 2050.

Food production requires water. And since water resources form a restrictive factor for
human works, the water affectively used (WAU) will be a critical factor. And for these
reasons, the European Parliament, in agreement with "Horizon 2020"program formulated
the words " more productionwith few resources." Agriculture is the main user of water
worldwide, consuming about 70% of total water use, including water used in animal
production and aquaculture, moreover, this sector is expected to witness an increase in
water consumption of about 20% by year 2025. Thus, it is expected that the competition
over water resources will increase on a wide range in many areas. To meet the growing
demand of the population for food and water, it is necessary to improve agricultural water
productivity, or economic return for every size of used water.

The history of the evolution of the human mind shows that before the agricultural
development we find that Neanderthal didn’t use the water, though it was much, except
for drinking and showers. But with the evolution of the human mind, mankind observed
the vegetation after rain and began melting down rivers and ponds of nearby land and
cultivating it, that historical evidence also indicates that the first time of that was in
northern Iraq. Then the human mind incented to other ways of irrigation like water wheel
and drip irrigation, but the biggest challenge remains is how to calculate the water needed
for the minimum livelihood of cultivated plants.

Modern science invented methods through which the moisture level of the soil and
watering cultivated land can be calculated before they reach the point of sustained wilt,
and also know the minimum amount of water that the plants will live through, without
being lost by not evaporation or drop to earth tanks as gravitational water. We will
discuss two important methods to know the moisture level and the time needed for crops
to be irrigated, these methods are sensors humidity and thermal imaging.

Soil moisture Sensor


Soil moisture sensors calculate volumetric water content in the soil, and since measuring
moisture content directly requires a sample of the soil, its weight and keep it dry. But
moisture sensors can measure volumetric moisture content PV indirectly through some
other soil characteristics like soil electric resistance, isolation constant or interacting with
neutrons as evidence of moisture content.

Through the relationship between the aforementioned characteristics and moisture


content, volumetric moisture level can be found. These mathematical relations differ
depending on some environmental factors such as soil quality, temperature, electrical
conductivity of the soil, also radiations of waves of the information transfer devices are
affected byMoisture level.

Urban, rural areas and residential lawns use sensors when dealing with irrigation system
controllers, where connecting the sensor with a simple irrigation clock turning it into a
smart irrigation system prevents the irrigation cycles when the soil is already wet, for
example after the rain.

How sensors work:

Figure 1

ThetaProbe (Figure 1) is a commonly used impedance sensor that generates 100 MHz
sinusoidal signal and outputs the measured impedance of the sampling medium as an
analogue DC voltage between 0 and 1 V for a range of dielectric constant, #, between 1
and 32, corresponding to a volumetric water content of approximately 0.5 m3m�3.
ThetaProbe consists of a waterproof housing containing an electronic circuit and an array
of four parallel stainless steel rods (3 mm in diameter and 60 mm long). The sampling
volume is defined by the dimensions of the probe: a cylinder of 40 mm in diameter and
60 mm long surrounding the centrally located signal rod (volume of approximately 75
cm^3) approximately 75 cm3). The impedance of this array corresponds with the
impedance of the soil, which has two components, apparent dielectric constant and ionic
conductivity. The effect of ionic conductivity was minimized by employing a frequency
of 100 MHz and thus the soil impedance changes depend almost solely on the apparent
dielectric constant of the soil. The apparent dielectric constant of the soil is determined
by the soil moisture, because the dielectric constant of water (~81) is much higher than
the soil particles (3–5) and that of the air (1). The details of the measuring Technique can
be found in the works of Gaskin and Miller.

Manufacturers classified these devices to be of 5% accuracy when measuring volumetric


water content. And to reduce the error rate, manufacturers recommend using other
adjustments to measure specific gravity of soils and when the use is hybridized
theaccuracy is1%. And when the study (ArticleLaboratory Performance of Five Selected
SoilMoisture Sensors Applying Factory and OwnCalibration Equations for Two Soil
Media ofDifferent Bulk Density and Salinity Levels) is reviewed

After comparing the results of the Theta Probe with in-site testing results it was found
that the accuracy of the results reached to 95% MDPI. The method of sending
information to smart devices is via a special cable runs from the device to an antenna
which sends parameters to the receiving device.

Figure 2
Thermal Imaging:
Irrigation is essential for agriculture production as in-season rainfall is inadequate to meet
crop water demandfor this reason poor irrigation timing and insufficient applications of
water are ubiquitous factors limiting productionin many agricultural regions [16].
Various studies have shown that the thermal infrared (TIR) part of thespectrum is more
sensitive to determine water stress than other reflectance in visible, NIR, or SWIR
wavelengthssince infrared (IR) thermometer measures the thermal temperature of the
plant leaves or a crop canopyand it is known that once plants go into water stress; their
stomata begin to close and cease to transpire, causingthe plant to ―heat up‖ and the
canopy temperature to rise [36]. In addition, thermal imaging appears to have
potentialadvantages over gas-exchange measurement when screening for stomatal
responses in phenotyping plantstudies]. As a consequence, considerable researchers have
been focusing on the use of thermal imaging or IRthermometers to schedule irrigation. A
wide range of researchers that use IR thermometer imagery to schedule irrigation focuses
on plant parameters such as: plant temperature and evapotranspiration rate) as well as
stomatal conductance, and closing of stomata.Monitoring stomatal conductance can be a
better indicator of plant response to drying soil than monitoring water potential because
reductions in stomatal conductance can occur even before any change in plant water
status]. Methods for using TIR to assess spatial variation in soil water availability also
have utility in precision agriculture applications.An example showed that plant growth
and soil water deficit vary spatially and temporally in a crop field where increased soil
water deficit within the root zone of plants increases canopy temperature which leads to
an increase in stomatal conductance, and suggest that this could be used as an estimator
to schedule irrigation. Newly researches combine thermal remote sensing with other
methods to access crop water stress and irrigation scheduling. developed an algorithm
that can assess automatically canopy temperature by aligning an optical image taken from
the plant canopy with the IR image, from simple color identification techniques in
combination with Gaussian mixture distribution extraction techniques and based on
measurement of data acquired from an IR thermography they were able to extract
successfully and automatically the canopy temperature distribution of the leaf. A new
approach was developed to schedule irrigation based on ground remote sensing systems.
Infrared radiometers and a conventional meteorological system were stationed on top of a
linear move irrigation system. The output signals were collected remotely in a personal
computer (PC) that was equipped with specific code to solve the Penmane-Monteith
(PM) equation for parameterization of aerodynamic and canopy resistances which were
then used to calculate the water requirement of the plants. From Infrared radiometric
system they were able to control remotely all components that are required to improve
irrigation management, including the automatic data collection, models, hardware and
software, in addition their remote sensing approach does not require signals from the soil
(as usually practiced) but instead it is based on signals that are emitted directly from
plants. combines hyperspectral and thermal imageries collected from airborne sensors on
a farm-level field experiments of maize and sorghum with different water irrigation
treatments imposed. Based on the results obtained in their study, Author’s states that the
integrated use of hyperspectral indices, fluorescence and thermal imageries can guarantee
good results for irrigation scheduling and crop water stress identification.

Figure 3

Thermal images are taken by cameras of thermal imaging. A clear difference can be
noticed between plants that need to irrigation and plants that do not.

As for the cameras themselves, there are several manufacturers of thermal imaging
cameras with infrared. The methods of sending and analyzing data are the same when
dealing with data from the ground moisture sensorsthrough sending information to a
central computer that displays and analysis information.

Figure 4
Conclusion
Using modern methods in calculating the water content of the soil and knowing whether
the soil needs irrigation with modern technology development has proved that it is
worthwhile when compared with traditional laboratory test results, where the accuracy of
the results was 95% which is very high. And when comparing quantities of irrigation
water used before and after technology, it was found that water rationing has reached an
estimated 25% which considered to be a significant percentage.
References:

1. Gabriel Villarrubia , Juan F. De PazDaniel H. De La Iglesia and Javier Bajo,


published in MDPI, Combining Multi-Agent Systems and Wireless Sensor
Networks for Monitoring Crop Irrigation.
2. Alvino and Stefano Marino published in MDPI, Remote Sensing for Irrigation of
Horticultural Crops.
3. FAW
4. EUP
5. K. Abutaleb1, F. Ahmed2, Applications of Thermal Imaging inAgriculture—A
Review Roselyne Ishimwe. Department of Geography, Environmental
Management and Energy Studies, University of Johannesburg,Johannesburg,
South Africa
school of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

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