Drip vs. surface irrigation: a comparison focussing on water saving and economic returns using multicriteria analysis applied to cotton

Research PaperThis study explores the use of drip and surface irrigation decision support systems to select among furrow, border and drip irrigation systems for cotton, considering water saving and economic priorities. Data refers to farm field observations in Northeast of Syria. Simulation of drip irrigation was performed with MIRRIG model for various alternatives: double and single row per lateral, emitter spacing of 0.5 and 0.7 m, six alternative pipe layouts and five self-compensating and non-compensating emitters. Furrow and border irrigation alternatives were designed and ranked with the SADREG model, considering lasered and nonlasered land levelling, field lengths of 50e200 m and various inflow discharges. A multicriteria analysis approach was used to analyse and compare the alternatives based upon economic and water saving criteria. Results for surface irrigation indicate a slight advantage for long non-lasered graded furrows; non-lasered alternatives were selected due to economic considerations. For drip irrigation, the best ranking is for systems having lower costs, mainly with double rows per lateral and larger emitter spacing. Comparing surface and drip irrigation systems, despite low cost, drip alternatives may lead to 28e35% water saving relative to improved graded furrows, and increase water productivity from 0.43 kg m 3 to 0.61 kg m 3, surface irrigation provides higher farm returns. Drip irrigation is selected only when high priority is assigned to water saving. Deficit irrigation does not change this pattern of results. Apparently, adopting drip irrigation requires appropriate economic incentives to farmers, changes in the structure of production costs and increased value of productioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The design and evaluation of travelling gun irrigation systems: enrolador software

Technical Paperinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Gesture recognition on smart cameras

Conference of Sensors, Cameras, and Systems for Industrial and Scientific Applications XIV ; Conference Date: 6 February 2013 Through 7 February 2013; Conference Code:96435International audienceGesture recognition is a feature in human-machine interaction that allows more natural interaction without the use of complex devices. For this reason, several methods of gesture recognition have been developed in recent years. However, most real time methods are designed to operate on a Personal Computer with high computing resources and memory. In this paper, we analyze relevant methods found in the literature in order to investigate the ability of smart camera to execute gesture recognition algorithms. We elaborate two hand gesture recognition pipelines. The first method is based on invariant moments extraction and the second on finger tips detection. The hand detection method used for both pipeline is based on skin color segmentation. The results obtained show that the un-optimized versions of invariant moments method and finger tips detection method can reach 10 fps on embedded processor and use about 200 kB of memory

Water saving vs. farm economics in cotton surface irrigation: an application of multicriteria analysis

Improving surface irrigation systems for cotton in Ras-El-Ain district, Northeast Syria, needs finding alternative solutions that provide for both water saving and farm economic benefits in a context of small and family farms. Multicriteria analysis was used to evaluate and rank a set of furrow and border irrigation alternatives, with and without precise land leveling, that were created with the decision support system SADREG. This approach allowed to consider various criteria, mainly water saving and farm economics. Results show that both graded furrow and border alternatives are acceptable, with a slight advantage for graded furrows. Alternatives without land leveling have shown to be more appropriate when focusing farm economic results, while alternatives including land leveling were selected when priorities were assigned to water saving. These results relate with higher costs of alternatives that consider land leveling. Equipment for appropriate control of inflow rates was considered for all cases. The improved alternatives may lead to savings of 20–28% of irrigation water and increasing the irrigation water productivity from present 0.31 to 0.44 kg m−3. When the same alternatives were ranked for a 20% deficit irrigation their rankings changed, with reduced ranks of alternatives requiring land leveling. This is due to the fact that yields and yield values are reduced with deficit irrigation, thus making it less favorable to select alternatives that imply higher costs. The study shows that adopting more advanced but more costly irrigation technologies aimed at water saving requires appropriate economic incentives, training of farmers and an institutional framework able to support the sustainable use of water in irrigatio

Avaliação do balanço de água e de sais no solo em três culturas permanentes do perímetro de rega do Roxo.

O regadio é fundamental para a produção agrícola em Portugal. As previsões de alterações climáticas mostram uma tendência para verões mais quentes e secos, e precipitação com uma maior irregularidade na sua distribuição. O aumento de evapotranspiração associado à rega poderá levar a uma maior concentração de sais no solo e por consequência, a um aumento do risco de salinização e da perda de produção das culturas. Por estas razões, a monitorização e controlo da salinização do solo são fundamentais para a sustentabilidade do regadio. Este trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar o balanço de água e sais no solo de três culturas permanentes (olival, amendoal, clementinas) situadas no perímetro de rega do Roxo, em Aljustrel, nos anos de 2019 e 2020. Foram monitorizados os teores de água e a condutividade elétrica do extrato de saturação do solo a diferentes profundidades. Foi depois utilizado o modelo HYDRUS-1D para simular a dinâmica da água e sais no solo e avaliar a sustentabilidade das práticas agrícolas existentes. Os resultados demonstraram que não há um aumento da salinidade no solo nos três locais monitorizados, embora seja importante melhorar as práticas de rega para maximizar a eficiência do uso da água aplicada