Modernization of technological tools for crop monitoring and water use efficiency in LAC agriculture

Abstract

The significant climatic variability present in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) generate marked regional differences in needs, availability, and management of water resources for agriculture. The availability of large-scale technological tools for monitoring crops and environmental conditions within their surroundings, becomes imperative in scenarios with a lack of water availability. To address this challenge, irrigation specialists from INIA-Chile, INTA Argentina, Agrosavia-Colombia, INIA-Uruguay, Irrigation-Mendoza, and the Institute of Regional Development of UCLM-Spain, with co-financial support from FONTAGRO, are developing an initiative called "New technologies for increasing water use efficiency in LAC agriculture by 2030". The main objective of the initiative is the modernization of technological tools for efficient management of water resource in agriculture. Our conceptual framework for analyzing crop water consumption is based in the standardized methodology FAO-Manual N 56 with the improvement of use satellite vegetation index information. Based on the availability of a time series of satellite imagery (NDVI index) as a technological basis, we provide detailed analysis and advice for irrigation management at plot scale, as well as at regional areas where a soil water-balance model is implemented to estimate regional water consumption. At both working scales, the validation of this conceptual-technological framework has been carried out using technological pilots. Our results confirm the operability of the proposed framework in both scales under various agricultural contexts. Therefore, the effectiveness of technologies for crop monitoring, for precise estimation of water consumption, and for the ability to improve water use efficiency has been validated.