SAWiE Irrigation Water Management Services
Pakistan has one of the largest contiguous irrigation system in the world where more than 93% water is used in agriculture. This is the area where maximum losses occur. For example, more than 60% of the water is lost during conveyance and during application in the fields mainly due to the poor maintenance of the irrigation system and conventional irrigation methods. Hence, a small saving in the agriculture sector would transform into huge water saving. Therefore, SAWiE major research focus is on agriculture.
The major activities of water management is to conduct research and development for the conservation and efficient utilization of available water resources to meet the current water demand for various sectors in general and agriculture in particular, as well as planning for future demands. The research and development activities are focused on major areas:
- Crop Water Requirements
- Water Conservation
- Groundwater Investigations
- Hydrology Modeling & GIS/RS
- Watershed Management
- Draining and Land Reclamation
Mapping of groundwater quality
Demarcation and mapping of groundwater quality zones in Upper and Lower Indus Plain
The ground water atlas has provided detailed information on fresh groundwater quality zones. This information will serve as pre-requisite for groundwater management and regulations.
Satellite based water resources management
Monitoring of groundwater storage with gravity satellite “Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)” for groundwater resource management at doab levels
Development and Modification of Technologies
SAWiE collaborates with PCRWR to develop some of the best engineering solutions for water quality treatment and agricultural water and nutrient management with necessary design modifications to make these technologies available locally. A few of these solutions are;
Chameleon Moisture Sensors
The Chameleon Soil Water Sensor mimics the way a plant experiences the amount of water in the soil by measuring how hard the roots have to suck (the tension required) to extract moisture. It is designed to be accurate in the range that most plants are sensitive to water stress. Because the Chameleon Sensor measures tension, it does not need to be calibrated to different soil types.
Chameleon Wifi Reader
The Wi-Fi Reader measures a sensor array comprised of three Chameleon Soil Water Sensors and a temperature plus ID sensor. The Chameleon Reader can be used to read any number of sensor arrays, can log data and upload data to the VIA platform.