THE FUTURE OF AGRICULTURAL WATER MANAGEMENT: SCARCITY,

REGULATIONS & IoT SYSTEMS.

Water has become a limiting resource for agriculture. As freshwater scarcity and
climate change are more evident by the day, the world is urging policy makers all over
the world to create more restrictive regulations for agriculture in terms of water usage
and water pollution. Thus, with water being highly regulated, agrobusiness is not
economically and technically viable anymore unless the system is transformed into
a one that uses water -and other resources- more efficiently.
In the era of technology, IoT systems1 and data analysis tools such as Machine
Learning2 must certainly be central part of this transformation. During the last two
decades, systems with soil and plant sensors, and weather stations fully connected to
cloud computing3 infrastructure has been produced and continually improved. Yet, there
is a scientific gap to be bridged as well as there is work to be done convincing “old
fashioned” farmers to be part of this era.

Less water to meet a higher demand of food.

By 2015 agriculture was responsible for ~70% of
the global water demand while the increment rate
was twice as large as the population growth rate
during the 20th century4. Covering the increasing
global food demands has pushed farmers to switch
from rainfed systems to fully or partially irrigated
systems. However, that pressure over the hydric
sources has been proved unsustainable. The
Global Water Institute projected that, by 2030,
700 million people could suffer from intense
water scarcity5 (GWI, 2013).
Regulations: Climate change along with the new
perspectives of water rights have brought debate
around the laws and policies regulating water
allocation and distribution. Competition for water
has increased and agriculture will no longer have guaranteed access to water diverted
from surficial or ground sources. For instance, on August 16th, 2021, California
regulators put into effect a law prohibiting water uptake from the Sacramento and San
Joaquin River to some Central Valley farmers (Wick J, 2021). Similar policies aiming to
control water pollution have been also imposed. At Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary
in the United States, scientists and policy makers have restricted agricultural point and
nonpoint source pollution by means of laws and incentives to farmers.

1
IoT systems and its role in agriculture
IoT (Internet of Things) system is a four-stages process where data flows from sensors and
actuators -data collection-; to data acquisition systems (DAS) and internet gateways -data
formatting and transmission-; then, to edge devices -data pre-processing-; and finally, to
cloud data centers -data analysis and storage-. In essence, IoT are real-time controlled
data systems supported by cloud computing frameworks.
IoT systems can provide agriculture with real-time control, precision and data-based
decision support systems to increase yield and profitability, while reducing waste.
However, implementing IoT into agriculture will require time, to make a soft transition;
cooperation, from growers, scientists and government entities; and investment.

Data collection is probably the most

developed stage IoT has in agriculture, yet
there is a gap to be filled. There are
sophisticated sensors and actuators
measuring in real time the hydric state of
soil and plants, or the weather conditions
to a local or global area. However,
integrating data from different sources and
getting rid of the noise that comes along
with data have not been resolved.
The data formatting and transmission
stage can be defined as overwhelming.
The challenge here comes with managing
to unify data from different sources. Third
party companies with robust infrastructure
have appeared to solve this challenge.

In data pre-processing efficiency means everything. Processing huge amounts of raw data
into centralized systems is economically and computationally expensive. It brings
performance issues to user applications, and increase the need of storage and processing
resources, which are expensive. Machine learning appears here as a powerful
classification tool to compress data and to eliminate noise.
The final data analysis is critical as this is the stage where data can be transformed into
useful information. Machine learning algorithms are vital to analyze huge amounts of data,
however, as data driven models, they lack the backup of physics which has been
controverted by farmers who are refusing to entrust their products to “black boxes”. New
approaches using physics guided machine learning algorithms seems promising for the
future coming.

Transiting from traditional farming systems to smart systems with huge datasets, will not
be possible unless scientist and engineers create easy-to-use tools rather than sophisticated
and complex systems. Also, it will require time, to learn from experiences, cooperation and
investment. Policies and laws should be implemented to build the budget, and to persuade
farmers IoT will let them to adapt to the new conditions.