Options
Title
Soil moisture forecasting for irrigation recommendation
Fields of Research (FoR) 2008:
Author(s)
Publication Date
2019
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2008
Early Online Version
Open Access
Yes
Abstract
This study integrates measured soil moisture sensor data, a remotely sensed crop vegetation index, and weather data to train models, in order to predict future soil moisture. The study was carried out on a cotton farm, with wireless soil moisture monitoring equipment deployed across five plots. Lasso, Decision Tree, Random Forest and Support Vector Machine modeling methods were trialled. Random Forest models gave consistently good results (mean 7-day prediction error from 8.0 to 16.9 kPA except in one plot with malfunctioning sensors). Linear regression with two of the most important predictor variables was not as accurate, but allowed extraction of an interpretable model. The system was implemented in Google Cloud Platform and a model was trained continuously through the season. An online irrigation dashboard was created showing previous and forecast soil moisture conditions, along with weather and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). This was used to guide operators in advance of irrigation water needs. The methodology developed in this study could be used as part of a closed-loop sensing and irrigation automation system.
Publication Type
Journal Article
Source of Publication
IFAC-PapersOnLine, 52(30), p. 385-390
Publisher
Elsevier Ltd
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020
2019-12-31
Place of Publication
United Kingdom
ISSN
2405-8963
File(s)
Fields of Research (FoR) 2020
Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) 2020
Peer Reviewed
Yes
HERDC Category Description
Peer Reviewed
Yes
Permanent link to this record