Site-specific water management Site-specific water management in in Mediterranean AgricultureAgriculture

Ioannis Manakos and Christos KarydasIoannis Manakos and Christos Karydas

Department of Environmental ManagementDepartment of Environmental Management

Athens, May 2005

Site-specific management (SSM)

Site-Specific Management (SSM) aims at improving the economics of the agricultural enterprise

and protecting the environmentthrough adaptation of input quantities to the real site-

specific needs of the field (‘management zones’).

Original image (reality) Homogeneous approach Site-specific approach

A vineyard in a false-colour combination of a satellite image

Use of GIS/RS in Water SSM (WSSM)

SSM can be employed for water savings by designating different water management zones in the field.

Parameters to be encountered in irrigation water management (management zone designation) are:

soil properties crop growth slope and other terrain parameters existing farming practices

GIS and Remote Sensing technology (GIS/RS) are introducing

combined solutions to the aforementioned.

Soil properties with GIS

Sampling of soil properties on a grid…

…and production of thematic maps with GIS functions

Crop growth derived from imagery

Heterogeneous crop growth can be detected with Vegetation Indices, e.g, NDVI derived from multi-spectral satellite imagery…

NDVI

Crop growth derived from a ground sensor

… or with a special sensor by registering reflection samples on the ground.

Legend Photographic plots20 60 Rel. coordinates (m)NDVI values:

SensorSystem

GPS

Application Unit

SensorSystem

GPS

Application Unit

Slopes derived from a DEM

Slope of the terrain is crucial in irrigation management

In a Mediterranean environment slope is very variant

Slope 5%

Slope 9%

Slope 19%

Slope 1%

Fields with high slope variance. In one field, slope ranges from 1 to 5% (changing slope class, i.e, from 0-3% to 3-8%).

Framework of the special Mediterranean Agriculture conditions

Mediterranean Agriculture is characterised by

a highly heterogeneous and fragmented environment

an undulating relief small mean parcel size low farmer income

WSSM for Mediterranean farmers

SSM for Mediterranean farmers must be cheap to invest on cheap to apply easy to adopt (user-friendly techniques and

short training) beneficial in economizing water and/ or

improving the farmer’s income

Indicative cost of GIS/RS equipment

Cost of a full GIS/RS/Cartography Unit: 25.000 €

Cost of a satellite image: 15 € / km2

(photogrammetric preprocessing in the lab), >100 € / km2 ready for analysis imagery products)

Cost of a special camera for use on the ground: 3.000 €

Cost of a GPS: 500 € Cost of operating sensor system

mounted on the tractor working in conjunction with board computer (appr. 12.000 €)

Implementation on operational basis

Collective purchase of equipment and acquisition of data (consequently very low cost per farmer)

Processing and data analysis by competent research and academic organisations

Result dissemination to the farmers by the local authorities

Thanks for your attention!!