Adaptation of Irrigation Systems to Current Climate Changes

Irrigation is a hydroameliorative measure, which involves controlled water management, in addition to natural water, to ensure and increase crop yield and harvest quality. The idea of artificially wetting agricultural crops to guarantee great produce has emerged since antiquity. Civilizations in arid areas of the globe have had to adapt to climate conditions to ensure their existence by developing irrigation systems that give them greater control over farming practices. Over time, due to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, several climatic changes have taken place: temperatures have risen, precipitation patterns have changed, glaciers have melted, sea and ocean levels have increased. To ensure its existence, the contemporary population needs irrigation systems adapted to the current environmental conditions. In this point, Beia and the Polytechnic University of Bucharest have developed a decision support system for an irrigation system that considers parameters such as: air and soil humidity and temperature, plant evapotranspiration, precipitation intensity, wind direction and speed, and relative pressure, to ensure the efficient use of water and energy resources in agriculture. The decision support system aims to develop a startup command for irrigation pumps for a certain amount of time-based on the information received from the transducers. This order is passed to the farmer in the form of an irrigation report as a support in his decision, but the decision to use the proposed arrangement is exclusive to the farmer.