The drought of recent years has caused great damage to agriculture. Climate models indicate that such periods of drought will become more frequent and more extreme in the future. Increasing (natural) water availability is important to make agriculture more resilient to drought.
Placing weirs on plot ditches is an important strategy in many areas here. However, regulating the level of these weirs must be very thoughtful: limit drainage and retain water when possible, and drain when conditions are too wet
threaten.
Moreover, (supra-local) communication is needed to align weirs. This project overcomes these challenges by digitising weirs and their management by combining sensors, remote sensing data, models and smart algorithms, visualised via a dashboard.
This digital platform allows fully automatic and real-time control of weirs, but also gives instructions to local actors for optimal manual management where weirs in a larger area are coordinated. This dual deployment enhances the applicability and scalability of DigiStuw, and also allows existing (and cheaper) manual weirs to be integrated.
In this project, this system is being developed and applied to field ditches in 3 waterways in collaboration with local farmers by installing at least 10 sensors and 40 additional weirs. The digital platform developed is directly applicable in other areas, and will be provided with a practical guide for a full roll-out from sensor to control.
