This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 642224
Spanish agriculture is based on irrigation, but water is scarce. Climate change would strength drought condition in the Mediterranean countries. Although Spanish investment in irrigation modernization is among the world’s highest, more effort is needed to improve irrigation management, incorporating latest technology. Besides, irrigation and fertilization excess are related to nitrates contamination in Ebro Valley. Farmers must conduct stainable irrigation, optimizing resources and protecting environment.
In that context, several lectures about irrigation were held at Aula Dei Foundation facilities, in Zaragoza, on March 16, 2017. Miguel Garcia, Amaltea’s CEO, was one of the lecturers. Miguel’s contribution was addressed to “Precision Irrigation”. Miguel highlight irrigators must take into account local soil properties, basing irrigation scheduling on the soil Field Capacity and crop water needs. Currently available spatial tools, such as GIS, could help to identify soil properties at the farm scale and to adapt irrigation to them. Moreover, available water models, combined with spatial tools, could help to develop “Decision Support Systems” (DSS). These DSSs could control irrigation, optimizing water use and reducing nitrate pollution.
Particularly, Amaltea is conducting one of the case studies in the FREEWAT project. This is a clear example about how modeling and spatial tools can assess irrigation and fertilization effects on nitrate pollution in a Nitrates Vulnerable Zone, located in Ebro Valley. Modeling approaches, in the framework of a GIS environment, could optimize irrigation and reduce contamination. They not only could help farmers to fulfill CAP cross-compliance, but also to improve their image, usually blamed as environmental polluters. This technology can be integrated in the “From farm to fork” policy and the circular economy. Further FREEWAT applications could merge other models, as well as intelligent sensors, in the framework of current actions related to “Internet of things” conducted in Zaragoza.