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Good practice Imported

IRRINET: IT irrigation system for agricultural water management in Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Italy · See the Italy profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

90 million m3/year
Estimated annual water saving from IRRINET use (2017)
20 %
Share of regional agricultural water demand saved (2017)
over 12000 farms
Farms using IRRINET (2017-2019)
200000 EUR
IRRINET development cost (from 1999)
0.02 EUR/ha
Ongoing management cost per hectare (ongoing)

Details

Maturity
Established
Keywords
irrigation, decision support system, IRRINET, water saving, scheduling, water balance

Context

Emilia-Romagna's 2018 Regional Adaptation and Mitigation Strategy projects regional temperature increases of about 1.5C (winter/spring/autumn) and about 2.5C (summer) for 2021-2050 under RCP4.5/8.5, with summer days without precipitation increasing about 20%, worsening water deficits for the region's roughly 84,000 farms (33% of which are irrigated), especially after the 2003 and 2012 droughts.

Objectives

Provide farmers with a free tool for efficient irrigation scheduling to optimise water use and sustain agricultural production, particularly in dry years, without reducing crop yields.

Activities

IRRINET, developed by the CER water consortium (piloted from a 1984 telematics project, web-based since 1999), computes a daily soil-plant-atmosphere water balance from regional meteorological, soil and crop data and delivers irrigation guidance via SMS, web interface and tablet app. IRRINET Plus (2009) added an economic 'traffic-light' advisory system. From 2011, the national ANBI-managed IRRIFRAME service extended the same model to other Italian regions.

Results

By 2017, IRRINET served over 12,000 farms (about 22% of Emilia-Romagna's irrigated area), sending 28,500 SMS messages and producing 147,000 irrigation schedules that season, saving an estimated 90 million m3 of water annually (about 20% of the region's agricultural water demand) without reducing crop yields. Development cost was about EUR 200,000; ongoing management cost is about EUR 0.02/ha, and the service is free to farmers. By early 2019, IRRINET-IRRIFRAME covered 16 Italian regions, 69 Land Reclamation Boards and over 16,000 users (12,000 of them in Emilia-Romagna).

Conclusions

The service's low management cost, ease of use and free access are identified as key success factors; the Emilia-Romagna region also incentivises adoption by linking Rural Development Plan funding eligibility to IRRINET registration. It is described as transferable to other contexts where local meteorological and soil data are available to calibrate the model.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Commonly funded by

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Data sources

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