INFEW/T2:WaterSmart: A Cyberinfrastructure-Based Integrated Agro-Geoinformatic Decision-Support Web Service System to Facilitate Informed Irrigation Decision-Making

灌溉可以显著提高作物产量，但却消耗了美国作物生产中约80%的耗水和23-48%的能源。因此，开发适用于州甚至国家层面的低成本高效灌溉技术，将对提高农业盈利能力和竞争力以及环境和经济健康产生重大影响。数据驱动的灌溉调度方法基于对作物、土壤和天气条件的及时可靠的测量，已经显示出显著的节水和节能以及经济和环境效益，但需要农民了解这些方法和及时可靠的措施，而他们通常不具备这些知识。该项目将加强美国的粮食和能源安全和环境健康，为农民带来巨大的经济效益，并帮助美国农业部实现其2030年可持续农业目标。其目标是节省10%的灌溉用水和能源，最大限度地提高粮食和能源的灌溉回报，减少农民在灌溉管理方面所需的时间和投资。如果在内布拉斯加州成功示范，WaterSmart可以推广到全国范围，每年直接节省885万英亩英尺的水和2.7亿美元的灌溉能源成本。WaterSmart将通过成熟和系统地整合数据驱动灌溉管理、遥感、农业地理信息学、本体驱动决策、建模、Web服务和CI技术方面的最新进展来建设。该项目将通过开发基于网络基础设施（CI）的综合农业地理信息决策支持网络服务系统WaterSmart，实现数据驱动方法的自动化，并展示其在内布拉斯加州的实时操作能力，而农民几乎无需为此付出任何代价。

Irrigation significantly increases crop yields but consumes approximately 80% of consumptive water and 23-48% of all energy used in crop production in U.S. Therefore, developing low-cost efficient irrigation technologies, applicable at the state or even national level, will have significant impact in enhancing agricultural profitability and competitivity and environmental and economical health. Data-driven irrigation scheduling approaches, based on timely and reliable measures of crop, soil, and weather conditions, have demonstrated significant water and energy savings and economic and environmental benefits, but require farmers to have knowledge of the approaches and timely and reliable measures, which they don't normally possess. The project will strengthen food and energy security and environmental health of our nation, bring immense economic benefits to farmers, and help the US Department of Agriculture reach its 2030 sustainable agriculture goals. The goals are to save ~10% of overall irrigation water and energy usage, maximize irrigation returns on food and energy, and reduce farmer's required time and investment in irrigation management. WaterSmart, if successfully demonstrated in Nebraska, can be scaled to national level, resulting in a potential direct saving of 8.85 million acre-feet of water and $270 million in irrigation energy cost per year. WaterSmart will be built through maturing and systematically integrating recent advances in data-driven irrigation management, remote sensing, agro-geoinformatics, ontology-driven decision-making, modeling, Web service, and CI technologies. This project will automate data-driven approaches by developing a cyberinfrastructure (CI)-based integrated agro-geoinformatic decision-support Web service system, WaterSmart, and demonstrating its real-time operational capability for Nebraska at virtually no cost to farmers.