Irrigation Network Automation

Increased Water Supply Reliability.

More sustainable and productive agriculture

Crop yields from irrigated land — which already produces some 40% of the world’s food — can be double those of rain-dependent agriculture methods.

However large-scale surface irrigation techniques have suffered in general many years of inefficient operation, poor data collection, and weak infrastructure maintenance. In many cases, there has been little incentive to rehabilitate canals or change practices because there has been enough water available to hide systematic shortcomings.

But modernisation is not just about infrastructure. The lack of real-time data collection has made it hard for irrigators to make sound operational decisions.

More sustainable and productive agriculture that maximises water efficiency requires a large-scale irrigation modernisation strategy, something ADASA’s experts can provide.

We help irrigators to reduce historical water losses bringing the farmer real-time, accurate water measurement and supply to allow irrigation even in parched years when water is scarce.

We retrofit Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems (SCADA) and automated readers to existing manual controls that deliver water to canals. This cost-effective solution brings real-time monitoring and data that allows instant water supply control, improving efficiency and bringing water savings. Staff no longer needs to travel to sites to monitor flows or make changes and may respond rapidly to variations in irrigators' needs.

ADASA also automates pumping systems into in-line storage reservoirs to make the best use of variable electricity tariffs. These reservoirs then use gravity to feed a network of pipes to provide enough pressure to irrigators to run on-demand spray irrigation.

Benefits

Greatly reduce the losses inherent in water delivery to irrigators.
Provide the ability to deliver to customers more in keeping with their own desire to improve on-farm productivity and efficiency or move to higher value crops.
Efficient to irrigation even in very dry years.
Respond rapidly to changes in irrigators needs.