DEVELOPMENT OF LOW COST SOIL MOISTURE SENSOR AND WIRELESS SYSTEM NETWORK FOR CROP IRRIGATION IN GIS

Abstract

Pakistan is water scarce country, with limited water resources. About 96% of the total available water is used for agricultural purposes, leaving 2% for domestic and another 2% for industrial use. The agriculture sector contributes about 25% of the Pakistan's GNP. Farmers in Pakistan receive their share of irrigation waters on a rotational basis. To protect their water, the farmers are using more than the optimum quantity of water required for healthy crops. Keeping in view the scarcity of water a project was designed with the objectives to (i) develop a soil moisture sensor and (ii) wireless Sensors Network (WSN) in determining the adequacy of water level for ideal irrigation system for crops in Pakistan. Perfection and precision brings heavy costs to the developers of such technologically advanced systems. The greater the sophistication of the system, the greater is the associated cost. An effort has been made to bring down the cost of this sophistication to the end user enabling not only larger economic output but also embedding different techniques and ideas of soil moisture and temperature sensors for better decision making using GIS, each time it is required and for every situation. The results have less human involvement thereby reducing errors. Also saving on time and cost will increase the use of proposed system for watering the less appropriate lands for better crops yield. GIS based standalone application that will enable agricultural professionals using wireless technology to collect the data from crop field ,transferring it to the computer thereby generating soil moisture and temperature map of the area and designing of variable rate irrigation system by using GIS techniques.