Method and system to control irrigation across large geographic areas using remote sensing, weather and field level data

摘要

A system and method to use remote sensing to estimate crop water use that is forecasted and is updated as weather and new satellite data become available. From these data the system and method uses a water accounting algorithm to prescribe irrigation differentially for regions of a field or for the entire field as an average. Irrigation prescription is delivered remotely through Internet technology.

主权项

1. A system for managing agricultural irrigation of crops in a field or one or more regions thereof, the system comprising:
at least one irrigation sprinkler located on the field or the one or more regions thereof; at least one irrigation controller configured to adjust water delivery by the at least one irrigation sprinkler to the crops, the at least one irrigation controller being located on or near the field or the one or more regions thereof; at least one instrument package configured to yield soil water data, irrigation data, solar radiation data and rainfall data, the at least one instrument package being located on or near the field or the one or more regions thereof and being configured to communicate with the at least one irrigation controller; a computer system located remotely from the field or the one or more regions thereof, the computer system:
(i) being configured to store an Earth observation satellite dataset of the field or the one or more regions thereof, historical reference evapotranspiration (ETr) data of the field or the one or more regions thereof, field boundary location data of the field or the one or more regions thereof, and crop growth curve statistics data including crop growth curve statistics data for a crop type of the crops;(ii) being configured to at least one of (a) receive the soil water data, the irrigation data, the solar radiation data, and the rainfall data from the at least one irrigation controller or (b) transmit the soil water data, the irrigation data, the solar radiation data, and the rainfall data to the at least one irrigation controller;(iii) being operable to determine a daily forecasted crop water use of the crops for future periods of multiple days based upon an initial crop condition of the crops assessed by using at least one of Earth observation satellite data of the Earth observation satellite dataset expressed as NDVI* or the crop growth curve statistics data for the crop type of the crops expressed as NDVI*, a function to adjust NDVI* to be a scalar of ETr data of the field or the one or more regions thereof for unbiased estimation of actual crop water use (ETa) data of the crops, and the historical ETr data of the field or the one or more regions thereof;(iv) being operable to adjust at least daily the daily forecasted crop water use of the crops determined for at least one period of the future periods based upon at least one of updated Earth observation satellite data of the Earth observation satellite dataset for at least one day of the future periods expressed as NDVI* or the crop growth curve statistics data for the crop type of the crops expressed as NDVI*, the function to adjust NDVI* to be the scalar of the ETr data of the field or the one or more regions thereof for unbiased estimation of ETa of the crops, and actual weather data of the field or the one or more regions thereof, including actual rainfall and actual ETr for each period of the future periods that has been completed; and(v) being configured to communicate with the at least one irrigation controller to instruct the at least one irrigation controller to adjust the water delivery by the at least one irrigation sprinkler to the crops based on the daily forecasted crop water use as determined and adjusted by the computer system.