An Open Source and Low-Cost Internet of Things-enabled Service for Irrigation Management

Agriculture accounts for more than 50% of freshwater withdrawal in the Mediterranean. Data-enabled technologies, such as Internet of Things (IoT), can play an important role in boosting water and energy use efficiency and improving crop productivity, by increasing the reliability and accuracy of real-time information. Advances in IoT have seen the proliferation of standards, open source software/hardware and low-cost devices as enablers for improving real-time data collection. Open source and low-cost technologies are important in rural environments, such as those dedicated to agriculture activities, in order to promote a wide adoption by farmers. Designing and deploying open, cost-effective and standardized smart solutions for irrigation management based on IoT requires the integration of different components: devices, communication and data transport, databases and data analytics, cloud computing and data visualization. This paper discusses the design, implementation and deployment of an IoT-based solution that provides a cost-effective service for irrigation management, integrating open source, low cost and open standard technologies. The service has been deployed in Sicily (Catania plain) in order to provide farmers with tools for reducing water footprints and improving crop productivity in citrus farming.