A geomatic application for water management in precision farming for a LIFE European project

The activities and the approaches described in this work are carried out in the frame of the current European LIFE project AGROWETLANDS II (Principal Investigator: M. Speranza, University of Bologna). This multidisciplinary project aims at the integration of multi-source data, to provide a valuable support for a more efficient and sustainable management of territorial resources, through an innovative approach to precision farming. The implementation of a smart irrigation management system is a central task of AGROWETLANDS II. A pilot system is operational in a study area located close to the Northern coast of the Adriatic Sea, in the Ravenna province (Italy). It is a farming area affected by soil and groundwater salinization, due to the ingression of sea water. The permanent monitoring network records several parameters for the weather, soil and groundwater. The expected results of the project include: a mitigation in the soil salinity, an improvement in the productivity of the crops, a reduction of the environmental impact and the implementation of a decision support system (DSS), which is able to advise farmers on the management of their agricultural activities (LIFE AGROWETLANDS II, 2019). In fact, one of the main goals of the project is to reduce the water use for crop production and to ensure a sustainable water management for an efficient agricultural production. In order to achieve significant results in precision farming and water management, an accurate survey is needed to create precise numerical models which are the necessary base for each subsequent analysis.