SPACE-IRR will be a smartphone, tablet, and desktop application for measuring irrigation from space.
Irrigation accounts for approximately 70% of the water withdrawn worldwide, and to feed an additional 2 billion people by 2030, water needs to be used more efficiently. Despite this, it is unknown how much water is used for irrigation worldwide due to lack of ground observations.
For the first time, SPACE-IRR will use satellite observations derived from Copernicus satellites Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 for measuring where and how much water is being used for irrigation each day. This will be on a 100×100 m2 spatial scale.
Companies, farmers, and national agencies involved in agricultural water management will benefit from SPACE-IRR as it will be the solution for better water use in agriculture and a valuable tool for ensuring ‘more crop per drop’.
Customer benefits
The unique selling proposition of SPACE-IRR is the possibility, for the first time ever, to obtain information on irrigation water use from satellite soil moisture, thus representing a “killer application” for the agricultural and food market. The target customers range from companies, national agencies to farmers.
© SPACE-IRR
Expertise
“Our winning team from the National Research Council of Italy, presents a new and innovative irrigation management approach. Together we will break new ground – and have great potential to exceed existing technologies and solutions. Their scientifically proven concept using Sentinel-1 and -2 data to estimate irrigated water on a global scale, will get our support in its further development. BayWa is excited to grant the team with the BayWa Smart Farming Challenge prize and looks forward to working together.” – Jörg Migende, Head of Agricultural Distribution & Head of Digital Farming, BayWa
Dr Luca Brocca, Dr Christian Massari, Dr Angelica Tarpanelli, Dr Paolo Filippucci
