Wake up! We are losing water! Aliveness is dying!
Raising the water-use efficiency of irrigated crop production is an urgent imperative. Of the world’s
usable water resource, 80% is currently consumed by irrigated agriculture. This level of consumption
by agriculture is not sustainable into the future. Population growth causes more need for industrial,
environmental and agricultural needs. Necessary precautions should be taken in order to avoid waste
of usable water. Otherwise there will be conflicts over water and it will lead to violent wars (Condon,
A. G., 2004).
It is a fact that, water is mostly used in agriculture. So that, the wrong irrigation applications causes
wastage of water. Wastage of water in agricultural applications in countries should be minimized in
order to solve the water problem which becomes more essential due the increasing population of the
world. Drip irrigation is one of an agricultural application. It, is also known as trickle irrigation, that
saves water and fertilizer by allowing water to drip slowly to the roots of plants, either onto
the soil surface or directly onto the root zone, through a network of valves, pipes, tubing, and emitters.
It is done through narrow tubes that deliver water directly to the base of the plant (Goldberg, 1976).
Some of the factors should be controlled during irrigation in order to have efficient usage. The factors
that should be taken in to consideration during the irrigation for efficient usage are;

vapor pressure,

temperature,

solar radiation,

wind

humidity
The solution that we would like to suggest to that problem is designing a “self-controlled farm system”
that is taken all of those factors under control with a smart system.
Nowadays, majority of population has smartphones, from this point of view we decided to use this
technology. We are planning to control the system that we designed with sensors and panels and
furthermore, we are planning a system that all the sensors could be conduct by smart phones and
computers. By the help of this, we suggest a system that maximum efficiency with minimum water
can be achieved in a controlled and easy way. First of all, sensors should be placed to the adequate
areas or thermal cameras may be used in order to reduce the cost. The thermal camera will help to
show the areas need irrigation with “red color” and “blue areas” show that no irrigation need.
Afterwards, there has to be an application to control the sensors or the camera. Sensors or the camera
will give us the data but we may not be available for the care of the land. At that situation an
automatical system would be useful. In addition to this, placement and size of the holes on the pipes
and the materials used for these pipes should be adequate in order to increase the irrigation efficiency.
Another solution is that farmers should be educated about that new technology and with the aim of
this, ministries should open courses for farmers to teach them the developing technologies in
agriculture so that there will be no waste of water. In addition to that, the farmers will be more
conscious about using the water in their lands. Finally, Ministries should decide to use water
efficiently in agricultural fields and related institutions should be coordinated accordingly. The
ministry should conduct these institutions in order to use recent technological developments such as
measurement sensors for detecting environmental conditions. Also educated staff should be employed.
As a conclusion technology is developing day by day in order to enhance the life of people. Smart
phones and computers are part of our lives and make our lives easier. Sensors that detect the need of
irrigation and send data to the smart phones would be very useful and maximum efficiency with
minimum water can be achieved in a controlled and easy way. Also, the farmers should be educated to
get benefit from that technology with the help of ministry or the authorized government. Suppose that
we reduce %80 of the usable water to %70. By this way, we supply an amount of %50 increase for
other purposes of water. Besides that, this system will provide water and time saving and the farmers
will be able to have more products with less fertilizer. When this system is compared with the present
system that is uncontrolled, it is obvious that more efficient agriculture could be achieved by this way.
References
1. Condon, A. G., et al. "Breeding for high water-use efficiency." Journal of Experimental
Botany 55.407 (2004): 2447-2460.
2. Goldberg, Dan, Baruch Gornat, and Daniel Rimon. "Drip irrigation: principles, design and
agricultural practices." Drip irrigation: principles, design and agricultural practices. (1976).