Agricultural Water Management 151 (2015) 1–3
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Agricultural Water Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat
Preface
New proposals in the automation and remote control of water
management in agriculture: Agromotic systems
Among all natural resources and consumables that are used in
agriculture, water is likely the most important factor in the crop
productivity (Tilman et al., 2002). For agriculture in Mediterranean
zones, which has a semiarid climate, the limited soil water availabil-
ity is the main restriction on practicing economically sustainable
agriculture. The management of irrigation systems is the key fac-
tor that directly affects the quality and quantity of the obtained
harvests. Moreover, it is likely that inadequate management of the
irrigation system can cause serious environmental and socioeco-
nomic effects.
The first step to correct agricultural water management is to
adequately determine crop water needs. For this purpose, it is nec-
essary to use techniques that allow the quantification of inputs
(rainfall and irrigation) and outputs (transpiration, evaporation and
drainage) that are involved in the crop water balance at the level
of the crop pattern. This balance is currently determined approx-
imately using soil sensors, agroclimatic stations, and lysimeters
(Soldevilla-Martinez et al., 2014; Kim et al., 2011). The use of soil
moisture sensors does not usually demonstrate good accuracy in
stabilizing water balances and managing irrigation. This is because
these devices only measure a small portion of the soil. Moreover,
the majority of these devices are not calibrated for the soil that
is being measured. Additionally, there are many installation mis-
takes because of the lack of soil uniformity (stones and cavities,
among others). Therefore, these sensors provide approximate mea-
surements, and the actual conditions are not adequately reported.
In contrast, agroclimatic stations allow the measurement of crop
reference evapotranspiration. These devices require knowledge of
the crop coefficients (Kc) to determine the crop water needs. These
coefficients are specific for each variety, pattern, soil, and climate
and are not calibrated in all cases. Although these devices provide
an orientation for the requirement, they do not provide a good
approximation of the actual data of water consumption for each
crop. More exact values on crop water consumption are provided
by the lysimeters. This method is the standard methodology for
the direct measuring of evapotranspiration (ET) (Payero and Irmak,
2008). These devices are used in agricultural to study variations in
a plot for a determined crop during experiments.
The data obtained by these devices and other additional data
are used in the agricultural water management decision-making
process. These data are periodically gathered using several devices,
and after these data are analysed, an irrigation management
decision is made. Using information and communication
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2014.12.001
0378-3774/© 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V.
technologies (ICT), this can be performed quickly and in real
time. Additionally, technologies related to automation and remote
control, such as electronics, automation, sensoring technologies,
and robotics, have advanced during the last decade, primarily
because of the decrease in the production costs of the basic com-
ponents. Moreover, there has been an increase in the functionality
of these devices (Doong and Ho, 2012). Such technologies have
been widely applied in highly technical sectors. However, less
development has occurred for agriculture.
Recently, ICT has gained ground in the agrofood sector (Quinn,
2011), e.g., monitoring using wireless sensor networks in the plot,
irrigated zones or climatic conditions (Wang et al., 2006; Nolz
et al., 2013), new hardware and software for the automation and
control of agromotic systems (Voulodimos et al., 2010), and pre-
cision agriculture (PA). The evolution and use of mobile devices
have been included in numerous agricultural applications (Molina-
Martínez and Ruiz-Canales, 2009; Jonoski et al., 2012; Fuentes
et al., 2012). The latest generation of mobile telephones (smart-
phones), tablets and similar devices possess high-processing power
and similar hardware to conventional PCs. Currently, farmers and
technicians are using mobile devices for agricultural applications
and perform programs to easily calculate a number of parame-
ters.
For crop water management using wireless sensor networks,
there exist a wide variety of solutions using the connection of
nodes in PA. There are several examples in the scientific litera-
ture (Keshtgary and Deljoo, 2012; Sakthipriya, 2014; Shining et al.,
2011). These are experimental solutions and are used in com-
mercial applications for which some problems exist. There are
difficulties in their adaptation to different types of crops, difficul-
ties in removing nodes, lack of numerous functions executed by
the nodes and hardware and software incompatibility. Further-
more, the majority of this equipment is not specifically designed
for agricultural purposes. It is important to analyse several aspects
in the design of nodes for PA applications. Other aspects are the
economic cost and security parameters, and above all, the use as a
multifunctional device.
The use of models for management has also been applied.
Among the management models, those related to water and energy
consumption and associated costs, together with the decision tools
are outlined (Carrillo-Cobo et al., 2014; Reca et al., 2014). These
models are integrated for the control of software, data gather-
ing and the scheduling of irrigation systems to interact with the
2 Preface / Agricultural Water Management 151 (2015) 1–3
system and generate reports, warnings and alarms to improve the
management of the system.
Sensors are also integrated into the agricultural water man-
agement systems. The use of adequate sensors for detecting the
soil moisture and crop water flows is an important part of these
management systems (Albaugh et al., 2014). Using these sensors is
possible to determine the water volumes necessary depending on
the crop phenology and other related parameters.
Image processing and digital photography is also used in crop
water management (Lorente et al., 2012; McCabe and Wood,
2006; Blasco et al., 2002). A specific use for irrigation purposes is
determining the fraction of ground cover of vegetation in a crop
(Laliberte et al., 2007; Walthall et al., 2004). This fraction of ground
cover is related to crop evapotranspiration and other vegetative
parameters to establish the phenology states and crop water needs
based on a digital image.
To reflect the technological advances in automation and remote
control applied to the agrofood sector, different terms have been
used by the scientific community. These terms are agromotics,
agrotic and agronic. The term used here is agromotics, consistent
with this Special Issue. This topic was developed in the “I Symposium
Nacional de Ingeniería Hortícola: La Agromótica en la Horticultura”,
“First National Symposium of Horticultural Engineering. Agromotics
in the Horticulture”, in Orihuela (Alicante), Spain in February 2014.
This event was organized by the Group of Horticultural Engineer-
ing of the Sociedad Española de Ciencias Hortícolas (SECH) and the
Escuela Politécnica Superior de Orihuela of the Miguel Hernández
University of Elche (Alicante), Spain. At this meeting, several agents
of the R+D+i section were included. These agents belong to several
research centres, universities and enterprises in Spain.
Agromotic systems offer a wide variety of possibilities in the
field of R+D+i worldwide. In this Special Issue, some of the more
innovative scientific contributions presented at the Symposium,
related to automation and remote control of water resources man-
agement in agriculture will be discussed.
Initially, several software tools for irrigation management in
several areas are presented. The work of Vera-Repullo et al. is
related to automation and remote control software for lysime-
try stations. A case study about weighing lysimeters for crops
in pot is reported. This tool allows the crop water needs to
be determined with a high efficiency and precision. An appli-
cation for smartphones using the iOS language is described by
Sesma et al. This application is used to calculate the diame-
ters of the laterals in trickle irrigation using different initial
data. Numerous simultaneous and complex calculations are pos-
sible without a PC. A software tool for PCs is developed by
Pagán et al. The adequate economically optimal combination of
fertilizers for fertigation is obtained from a database of the avail-
able products in the market. The final objective is decreasing
the acquisition costs of the product according to the nutritional
needs of the crop. The proposal by Bueno-Delgado et al. is an
improved application of the software for smartphones. This soft-
ware is developed in Android for the calculation, storage and
data transferring of extra-terrestrial solar radiation depending
on the GPS coordinates and other additional parameters. With
this software and adaptive design of the elements, a screen for
use in tablets has been developed. A case study of the use of
energy modelling for pumping stations, and hydraulic modelling
of an irrigation network for agricultural purposes applied to golf
courses, is reported by García-González et al. These types of tools
identify potential improvements in irrigation network manage-
ment.
The use of agromotic applications for hardware and software
in commercial orchards is reported by García Morillo et al. This
case study is about strawberry cultivation. The productive and mar-
ket characteristics of this crop require precision irrigation using
pulses and avoiding percolation. This integral system includes serial
management patterns, and the irrigation system consists of auto
compensating, no suction and no draining emitters, regulation
valves, and soil moisture gauges. Irrigation programmers, weather
station and fertilization control with different types of support for
management and control by the user (PC, mobile, and tablets) are
also used. Another application is an integral system of automation
and remote control presented by Cancela et al. for viticulture. For
this purpose, an integral system of soil moisture sensors, including
watermark and time domain reflectrometry (TDR), and a con-
nected wireless sensor network with real time data transferring
are applied. With this system, is possible to determine the fitting of
crop coefficients for several vineyard varieties. This allows the pre-
cise irrigation management, and it is possible to apply controlled
stress to obtain adequate qualities of the harvest. Related to the
wireless sensor network applied to irrigation, wireless architec-
tures for crop irrigation management are described by Navarro et al.
Using interconnected wireless nodes with GPRS and configurable
control hardware and software for different variables, such as soil,
water and plant, the irrigation of a crop is managed in real time.
These nodes are supplied by solar energy. The obtained data are
managed and collected in a server, and these wireless communica-
tion devices are successfully used in the field. However, systems for
data management in the ‘cloud’ must be developed. This previous
study is complemented by the use of a new multifunctional wire-
less sensor node developed by López et al. With this device, it is
possible to configure the hardware and the software. Additionally,
it is possible to establish in a unique device with all of the neces-
sary elements to configure a wireless sensor network. This node has
been tested and validated successfully in commercial horticultural
applications.
The study by G. Fernández-Pacheco et al. about new indica-
tors for the automation degree of collective pipeline irrigation
networks is also included in this Special Issue. Because of the range
of water and energy use indicators in these irrigation systems and
because of the emergence of automation and remote control ele-
ments, it is necessary to use new parameters. These indicators
provide information to improve the collective irrigation systems.
With these indicators, the strengths and weakness of several sys-
tems are described.
The application of automation and remote control in an exper-
imental drainage network is described by Jiménez-Buendía et al.
Using flowmeter readings and pulse pluviometers, the transmis-
sion to a compact computer and registration in the internet makes
real time data management possible. Ruiz-Peñalver et al. describe
a new low cost integral system of weighing lysimeters for pot-
ted crops. Automation and remote control tools to improve the
efficiency and precision of irrigation are shown. Additionally, this
system is applicable to other analogous fields, such as crops without
soil and hydroponics.
Based on dynamic systems identification, virtual sensors (VS)
are presented as an alternative to sophisticated traditional sen-
sors. The study of Sánchez-Molina et al. shows that it is possible
to calibrate and validate VS from data, which can be integrated
into irrigation controllers based on advanced control techniques.
The use of VS allows a decrease of costs and speed compared
to traditional, more complex sensors. Oates et al. describe a low
cost sensor based on ground resistivity to calculate soil moisture.
The variations of electric conductivity and temperature compensa-
tion were determined. This sensor includes a microcontroller with
a 10 bit multichannel and digital-analogue converter. An experi-
ment comparing the use of two thermometric gauges is presented
by Escarabajal et al. This commercial equipment includes ther-
mocouples (TMCs) and resistance temperature detectors (RTDs)
to estimate the evapotranspiration using the Bowen ratio energy
balance (BREB) method.
 Preface / Agricultural Water Management 151 (2015) 1–3
Finally, the use of digital photography for agricultural water
management was included in three studies of the irrigation of
lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.). The use of digital photography for verti-
cal projection in irrigation control and scheduling is reported by
Escarabajal et al. Using a computer, it is possible to obtain the
related parameters for crop growth modelling and water require-
ments. Techniques based on colour analysis from a wide and varied
group of plantation images and classified by soil and crop zones are
described by García-Mateos et al. This study identifies adequate
colour models for crop irrigation management. Again, the method-
ology of digital photography application in vertical projection for
control and irrigation scheduling is reported by Escarabajal et al.
In this case, to analyse deficiencies in management and to quantify
irrigation excess, the monitoring of irrigation management by soil
moisture sensors is simultaneously performed.
Acknowledgments
We thank Dr. J.E. Fernández, Editor of the journal Agricultural
Water Management, Ms. Pallavi Das, Journal Manager, and the rest
of the editorial staff for hosting this special issue and for their assis-
tance with the editing process. We also thank the authors of the
papers included in this issue, and the reviewers for their invaluable
work to improve the articles.
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Guest Editor
A. Ruiz-Canales ∗
Guest Editor
M. Ferrández-Villena
Engineering Department, EPSO, Miguel Hernández
University of Elche, Ctra. Orihuela-Beniel, km 3.2,
03312 Orihuela, Spain
∗ Corresponding
author. Tel.: +34 966749639.
E-mail address: aruizcanales@gmail.com
(A. Ruiz-Canales)
Available online 17 December 2014