Irrigation – opportunities of digitalisation

Digital data and tools are increasingly part of agricultural practice and water management in Austria. Decision support systems can be used to control irrigation digitally and adapted to agrometeorological conditions. Apps and web-based services (e.g., ada.boku.ac.at, eo4water.com) have been developed to facilitate irrigation planning using publicly available satellite, weather, soil, and land use data (e.g., opendatacube.org, data.gv.at). Online probes (e.g., ehyd.gv.at) allow real-time display of groundwater levels or surface water discharges. Water withdrawals for irrigation purposes are recorded with different information density via water information systems (e.g. online water books of the federal states). Some digital tools are already in use, various research projects deal with partial aspects of this topic, data bases are available in different forms at a number of institutions. However, there is a lack of an overview of the current state of research, the available data bases and digital tools, as well as the developments and challenges in this topic area, which would enable targeted further developments and synergetic uses of existing data. Therefore, the current state of research, available data bases and digital tools, as well as current developments and challenges are to be compiled and presented in the form of web-compatible factsheets with the intensive involvement of the relevant stakeholders (agriculture, water management, research). For this purpose, in a first step, the relevant topic areas will be defined in communication with the stakeholders, the research sources will be determined, the criteria for the consideration and evaluation of information will be established, and a standardized form of presentation will be designed. The existing data bases and tools are evaluated for their concrete feasibility, synergy potential, and availability/accessibility for different stakeholders. Complementary to this, identified gaps are presented.