Developing a Web-Based Service to Support on-Farm Irrigation on Hetao Irrigation District, China

To cope with water scarcity in agriculture, water saving is a major priority, by upgrading the irrigation techniques and practices. Hetao Irrigation District, Inner Mongolia, China, a large area located in the water scarce upper Yellow River basin, is an example of this problem. This process requires information and communication technologies to bring knowledge to field technicians and farmers, favoring this development. On this context, the Web-based services are particularly effective in contributing to upgrading irrigation management, allowing an easy and automatic access to up-to-date access of simulation models and data, to broaden these tools to extension agricultural technicians to an effective means of assisting farmers. The purpose of this paper is to describe a research collaborative project to develop a web-based service to support on-farm design and management of irrigation systems to be applied to Hetao, to be applied by field technicians as an extensive tool, and by university students as a learning platform for training. This web tool is under development using a model-view-controller approach so it is easily adaptable while adjusting the simulator to the contexts, keeping it effective and robust. It is presented a demonstration example to highlight the interface characteristics, the input and output data, and the potential of this Web service.