NASA researchers have developed a computer program to help farmers better manage irrigation systems in real time. The software uses data from NASA satellites, local weather observations, and wireless sensor networks installed in agricultural fields to calculate water balance across a field and provide farmers with information on crop water needs and forecasts that can be accessed from computers or handheld devices.
Nearly 70 percent of the U.S. water supply is used for irrigation. Providing detailed information to farmers, says Rama Nemani, a senior research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, will help them make the most efficient use of the water available to them.
NASA is working with farmers and vineyard managers in the San Joaquin Valley in California to beta-test the new software as part of an 18-month research project to optimize irrigation management. The software is an advanced version of the Terrestrial Observation and Prediction System (TOPS), which NASA has used for many years to model such things as floods, droughts, and deforestation. The researchers developed software that can process satellite data from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey and link it with wireless sensor networks’ measurements of ambient conditions like temperature, rainfall, and soil moisture. The system can also incorporate local weather observations and forecasts. The project is the first to combine satellite and surface observations to estimate irrigation needs at the scale of an individual field or vineyard, and distribute the information to farmers in near real time, says Forrest Melton, a project scientist at Ames.
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