New research: A better, faster tool for saving water on farms
Stanford researchers have designed an irrigation optimization tool that could help farmers slash water use. The tool rapidly estimates water loss from soils due to “evapotranspiration,” a process that involves the evaporation of water into the atmosphere and the uptake of water by plants. Compared to state-of-the-art ways of getting such evapotranspiration estimates, the new Stanford modeling tool works 100 times faster while maintaining high levels of accuracy. In practice, the tool could dramatically reduce the time needed to devise strategic, efficient irrigation schedules that best position watering and sensing equipment across entire farms.