REAL-TIME SITE SPECIFIC IRRIGATION SCHEDULING TOOLS FOR AGRICULTURAL CROPS AND URBAN LANDSCAPE IN TEXAS USING A MOBILE WEB APP

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: TERMINATED
• Funding Source: OTHER GRANTS
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 1012198
• Grant No.: 2017-38821-26410
• Project No.: TEXXAWAL2017
• Proposal No.: 2016-06506
• Program Code: EQ
• Project Start Date: Apr 1, 2017
• Project End Date: Mar 31, 2022
• Grant Year: 2017

Project Director
Awal, R.

Recipient Organization
PRAIRIE VIEW A&M UNIVERSITY
P.O. Box 519, MS 2001
PRAIRIE VIEW,TX 77446

Performing Department
Cooperative Ag Research Center

Non Technical Summary
Agricultural and urban landscape irrigation, including golf courses, uses a substantial portion of fresh water in Texas. Irrigation scheduling has been used to optimize water use efficiency. Despite their practical uses, irrigation scheduling methods are not as widely used as they could be. One of the main obstacles limiting their adaptation, especially computer software based irrigation scheduling methods, is that they are time consuming activities for busy farmers and landowners. Advances in real-time computing and widespread of smart devices present opportunities for water management scientists to develop user friendly irrigation scheduling software and mobile apps which calculate real-time plant water requirements based on real-time site specific rainfall, evapotranspiration, soil and plant growth data. The main goal of this project is to develop the IrrigWise mobile web app for irrigation scheduling that uses near real-time and forecasted weather data for a specific geographic location. The specific objectives of this project are to: i) develop applications to access: a) near real-time data of rainfall, ETo and their related parameters from different weather networks across Texas, b) forecasted weather data, and c) site specific soil hydrologic data, ii) develop, test, and validate the mobile web app, IrrigWise, to provide site specific real-time irrigation scheduling data for different crops under urban and agricultural production environments, iii) conduct trainings to demonstrate the use of IrrigWise App and iv) distribute IrrigWise and related publications to stakeholders. Following the user's selection of the location of interest, plant, and irrigation system, IrrigWise automatically selects the appropriate weather and soil hydrological data; then it calculates the selected plant specific irrigation requirements, and the start and duration of the next irrigation date using current and forecasted weather data. It's expected that this effort will contribute to an efficient water use in Texas.

Animal Health Component

0%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

10%

Applied

50%

Developmental

40%

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
111	0210	2050	60%
132	0430	2070	20%
102	0110	2061	20%

Knowledge Area
102 - Soil, Plant, Water, Nutrient Relationships; 111 - Conservation and Efficient Use of Water; 132 - Weather and Climate;

Subject Of Investigation
0430 - Climate; 0110 - Soil; 0210 - Water resources;

Field Of Science
2070 - Meteorology and climatology; 2050 - Hydrology; 2061 - Pedology;

Keywords

agricultural crops

irrigwise app

irrigation scheduling

near real-time weather data

urban landsca

Goals / Objectives
The main goal of this project is to improve irrigation water use efficiency through the development, testing, validation, and dissemination of the irrigation scheduling tool, IrrigWise mobile web app, which uses near real-time weather data (rainfall and Evapotranspiration, ETo), site specific soil hydrologic data, and crop specific crop coefficients under urban and agricultural production environmental conditions across Texas.The specific objectives of this work are to:develop web applications to access: i) near real-time data of rainfall, ETo and their related parameters from different weather networks across Texas, ii) forecasted weather data, and iii) site specific soil hydrologic data;develop, test, and validate a mobile web app, IrrigWise, to provide site specific near real-time irrigation scheduling data (when to irrigate and for how long) for different crops under urban and agricultural environments;conduct an outreach program, e.g. training sessions, livestream videos, and seminar presentations, to demonstrate the use of IrrigWise to different stakeholders; in addition, these outreach materials will be available through the college web site and disseminated in local, regional, and national meetings and scientific publications.

Project Methods
The methodologies proposed for each activity are listed for each objective.Objective I: IrrigWise, the irrigation scheduling tool will be developed as a mobile web app which will be accessible from any device that runs a browser unlike the native apps (e.g. iOS, Android etc.) which are tied to a specific operating system. This tool will either use the geographical coordinates of the mobile device or the user specified coordinates of the location of interest. Then, the user will select the crop of interest and the irrigation system used; based on the coordinate of the location, IrrigWise automatically selects the appropriate soil type of the selected location and generates site specific values for the weather data by interpolating the weather data from the nearest weather stations. Irrigation requirements will be calculated based on plant growth stage, soil type, irrigation system, and collected weather data.We will install six weather stations at six locations across Texas which are not covered by the existing public domain weather networks. We understand that the addition of six weather stations is not enough to achieve good coverage for Texas; however, this will help us to establish our own weather network which can be later expanded to cover larger areas across Texas. Three applications will be developed to retrieve i) the necessary weather related data needed (e.g., rainfall, Tmin, Tmax, net radiation, wind speed, and relative humidity), ii) forecasted weather parameters (e.g., rainfall, Tmin, Tmax), and iii) soil hydrologic parameters (water holding capacities for entire soil profile, hydrologic soil group). After an in-depth review of existing weather / ET networks which can be used for near real-time daily data of rainfall and ETo in Texas, we will develop an application to collect near real-time weather data. The near real-time daily data from all publically accessible stations will be retrieved from existing weather/ET networks and stored on our server on a daily bases. Some of these ET networks provide complete data needed to calculate ETo; however, other stations only provide limited weather data that does not allow to calculate ETo using standard ETo calculation equations, e.g. Penman-Monteith equation. Thus, we will use alternative methods, e.g., calibrated Hargreaves-Samani equation to calculate ETo based on daily Tmin and Tmax. Daily ETo and rainfall data collected from weatherstations will be interpolated to produce ETo and rainfall data at the user's selected location.Another application will be developed to retrive forecasted daily Tmin and Tmax and Quantitative Forecast Grids (QPFs) from the National Weather Service. This application will provide forecasted rainfall and ETo for any location across the state based on its ZIP code or using its specific location coordinates (Long/Lat). Reference evapotranspiration will be estimated based on forecaseted Tmin and Tmax using calibrated Hargreaves-Samani equation. The third application will provide soil hydrological properties for any location in Texas based on its coordinates (Long/Lat). Texas' soil survey data will be collected from the SSURGO database; the soil hydrological data for all soil series will be extracted and a database will be developed using those information.Objective II: The IrrigWise mobile web app will integrate input data collected from three applications, user specified inputs, and crop data. Users will select the location(s) of interest, crop type, crop growth stage, and irrigation system. Following these user's selections, IrrigWise automatically selects the appropriate weather and soil hydrological data; then it calculates the selected plant specific irrigation requirements, and the start and duration of the next irrigation date using current and forecasted weather data.The proposed irrigation scheduling tool will use the water balance approach with a two-layer soil profile to simulate the irrigation water requirements for specific plants on a daily basis. The plant specific irrigation requirements are calculated based on the plant physiology, soil, irrigation system, growing season, weather data and basic irrigation management practice solving daily water balance equation of the soil column. The required irrigation water is expected to compensate the water needed to refill the soil profile in the rootzone to field capacity. Available water depletion values are determined based on the site specific soil hydrologic properties of the location of interest. The gross irrigation requirement accounts for irrigation system efficiencies. IrrigWise will be validated using data for different agricultural and landscape crops at different locations across Texas including data the project team will be collecting from the six locations across Texas.Objective III: The project web site will be launched to give up to date details on the project activities. IrrigWise App will bedisseminated to different stakeholders through the project web site, during different training and demonstration activities and individually to interested parties. We will organize field days, workshops, and trainings sessions to different stakeholders across the state. During year 3, we will organize train-the-trainers workshops focusing on county agents and extension specialists. Additional series of workshops/trainings targeting agriculture and urban communities will also be given. We will publish different extension materials about IrrigWise App. We will present the output of our project in national conferences, meetings, and published peer-reviewed journal papers.

Progress 04/01/17 to 03/31/22

Outputs
Target Audience:Farmers, ranchers, agricultural professionals, researchers, agency representatives, and students Changes/Problems:The project went through several challenges, including COVID-19. A major cyber attack against PVAMU forced the university to power down all servers in February 2021. A sudden server shutdown due to URI Winter Storm that hit hard Texas damaged the hardware of the IrrigWise Server and was unable to recover all data. We are still working on restoring IrrigWise and all other tools hosted on that server. Delays in hiring a postdoc researcher at the beginning of the project and after the departure of a postdoc researcher in the middle of the project caused some challenges in conducting some of the planned activities. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Postdoc researchers were trained to develop irrigation scheduling tools, supervise graduate and undergraduate students, and conduct outreach activities. Graduate students who worked on the project contributed to the development of the different components of the irrigation scheduling tools and the analyses of climate and soil data. Undergraduate students were trained to use IrrigWise and collect other required climate and soil data for irrigation scheduling and irrigation water requirement estimating applications. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Project team members published three journal articles, one proceeding paper, and several conference presentations. Scientists and students presented the research outputs at local, regional, and national symposiums and conferences. The developed irrigation-related tools were introduced to farmers, ranchers, agricultural professionals, researchers, agency representatives, and students at the Southern Region Water Conference, AgNR Training Workshop, CAHS Seminar Series, ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meeting, AGU Fall Meeting, the 6th Decennial National Irrigation Symposium participants. IrrigWise was also introduced to students in the following courses: AGEG 1413 Fundamentals of Agricultural Engineering(2019), AGRI 2360 Environmental Soil Science, and Rising Technologies and Predictive Analytics of Water Management for a Sustainable Agriculture in 2020, 2021, and 2022. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1: We developed eight applications to: (i) collect weather data from different weather networks across Texas (i.e., West Texas Mesonet, U.S. Climate Reference Network, Texas ET Network, TexMesonet, Soil Climate Analysis Network), and Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM), (ii) extract soil data of the selected field based on Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO), and (iii) extract forecasted climate data of the selected location based on forecasted climate data of National Weather Service. We also installed four weather stations in collaboration with Texas Water Development Board. We developed the WeatherAndSoil app (an Android app) for site-specific soil and forecasted weather data. The app calculates daily reference evapotranspiration using forecasted daily maximum and minimum temperature based on the Hargreaves and Samani equation. This app has a user-friendly interface that helps managing crops and lawns water management. We evaluated the performance of simple temperature-based empirical equations in estimating reference evapotranspiration in West Texas using climate data from West Texas Mesonet and PRISM data. These equations were calibrated to improve their performance in West Texas. A draft journal paper: Calibration and Evaluation of Empirical Methods to Estimate Reference Crop Evapotranspiration in West Texas is in preparation Objective 2: We developed a web-based irrigation scheduling tool, IrrigWise, for Texas to calculate plant irrigation requirements based on near-real-time site-specific rainfall, reference evapotranspiration, soil water content, and plant growth stage. It uses data from several databases, including USDA-NRCS' Soil Survey Geographic Database, rainfall, and evapotranspiration from multiple weather networks across Texas, and forecasted weather data for five consecutive days from the National Weather Service. Weather stations are nonuniformly distributed across Texas; thus, in the absence of weather data, daily gridded weather data such as data generated by the Parameter elevation Regression on Independent Slopes Model, PRISM is used. This PRISM weather data, which is available at 30 arcsec (800 m) and 2.5 arcmin (4 km) resolutions, was used as input for IrrigWise (IrrigWise-PRISM). IrrigWise-PRISM establishes irrigation scheduling programs for any crop or landscape grown at any location across the contiguous US and during any specific growing season. IrrigWise and IrrigWise-PRISM allow the users to select the appropriate crop and soil-related parameters. These tools track the daily values of the water budget components , including irrigation amounts and near-real-time weather data. In addition to providing information on when and how long to irrigate, these tools predict the selected field's root zone soil water content dynamics for five consecutive days based on forecasted weather data and projected crop water uptakes. Wide use of these tools by the farming and urban communities could help improve irrigation management of crops and urban landscape in Texas and the contiguous US. We also improved Irrigation Water Estimator for Texas (IWET), a web-based crop and urban landscape irrigation water requirement calculation tool. Objective 3: The PI/Co-PIs, postdoc research fellows, and graduate and undergraduate students presented the research outputs at local, regional, and national symposiums/conferences. The project trained two postdoc researchers, six graduate students, and one undergraduate student in developing different components of irrigation scheduling tools and collecting and analyzing climate and soil data. Project team members published three journal articles and one proceeding paper and gave 29 conference presentations (oral/poster). The project tools were introduced to farmers, ranchers, agricultural professionals, researchers, agency representatives, and students at the Southern Region Water Conference, AgNR Training Workshops, CAHS Seminar Series, ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meetings, AGU Fall Meetings, and the 6th Decennial National Irrigation Symposium participants. IrrigWise was also introduced to students enrolled in the following courses: AGEG 1413 Fundamentals of Agricultural Engineering, AGRI 2360 Environmental Soil Science, and Rising Technologies and Predictive Analytics of Water Management for a Sustainable Agriculture.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Habibi, H., Awal, R., Fares, A., and Temimi, M.: Performance of Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor (MRMS) product in monitoring precipitation under extreme events in Harris County, Texas, Journal of Hydrology, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2021.126385
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Awal, R., Fares, A., and Habibi, H.: Irrigation Scheduling Tools: IrrigWise and IrrigWise_PRISM for Agricultural Crops and Urban Landscapes, 6th Decennial National Irrigation Symposium, December 6-8, 2021, San Diego, California 2020-050. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.13031/irrig.2020-050)
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Fares, A., Awal, R., Mohtar, R.: Potential Impact of Management Practices on Green Water Under Arid and Semi-arid Conditions, ACS Fall 2021, August 22-26, Atlanta, GA (In-Person & Virtual).
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Awal, R., Fares, A., and Habibi, H.: Evaluation of Performance of Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor (MRMS) product in Monitoring Extreme Precipitation in Harris County, Texas, Disaster PRIMR 2021 at Texas A&M University, January 31 - February 4, 2021. Virtual Meeting.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Ferrell, B., Awal, R., Elhassan, A., Griffin, R., and Fares, A.: Effect of Different Cover Crops on Soil Water Content, First Conference for Interdisciplinary Student Research (CISR), April 1-2, 2021 (Virtual Conference).

Progress 04/01/20 to 03/31/21

Outputs
Target Audience:Farmers and ranchers, agricultural professionals, researchers, agency representatives, and students Changes/Problems:Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we could not accomplish some of the planned activities for this year. The postdoctoral fellow that worked on the project left on 12/04/2020. We are in the process of hiring a replacement. A major cyberattack against Prairie View A&M University on 02/04/2021 forced the university to power down all servers, including the server in which we are hosting IrrigWise, IrrigWise-PRISM, and IWET applications. A sudden shutdown of the server after the cyberattack damaged the server's hardware, and we are currently working on retrieving the data and restarting the applications. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?One undergraduate and one graduate students worked on the project and were trained on how to develop different components of irrigation scheduling and irrigation water requirement estimating applications. IrrigWise was introduced to undergraduate and graduate students. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The project team members published one journal article. Scientists and students presented the research outputs at local and national symposiums and conferences. The project tools were introduced to participants of the triple societies ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meeting and the First Conference for Interdisciplinary Student Research. IrrigWise was also introduced to undergraduate students as a part of the AGRO 2603 Environmental Soil Science and course Rising Technologies and Predictive Analytics of Water Management for a Sustainable Agriculture. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Install the remaining three weather stations and collect soil moisture data from selected crops for the validation of IrrigWise. Improve IrrigWise by incorporating weather data from additional weather networks and the additional stations that will be installed in 2021. Conduct training sessions and seminar presentations to demonstrate the use of IrrigWise to different stakeholders. Publish the outcomes in peer-review journals, extension materials and present in conferences

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We have been regularly updating the web-based irrigation scheduling tools IrrigWise, IrrigWise-PRISM, and Weather and Soil app. We also improved Irrigation Water Estimator for Texas (IWET). IWET is a web-based tool for crop and urban landscape irrigation water requirement calculation. We added a new function to IWET to estimate irrigation water requirements in the selected area. All these tools are available online: http://irrigwise.pvamu.edu/introduction/index.php. We have been collaborating with TexMesoNet, Texas Water Development Board. We published one journal paper and gave three conference presentations.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Habibi, H., Awal, R., Fares, A.: Performance of Remote Sensing Technologies in Monitoring Precipitation under Extreme Rainfall Events in Harris County, Texas, Journal of Hydrology, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2021.126385.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Ahmed, A.A., Omari, S.A., Awal, R., Fares, A., and Chouikha, M.: A distributed system for supporting smart irrigation using Internet of Things technology, Engineering Reports, https://doi.org/10.1002/eng2.12352.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Awal, R., Fares, A., and Habibi, H.: IWET: A Web-Based Tool for Estimating Irrigation Requirements for Crops and Urban Landscapes in Texas, ASA, CSSA and SSSA International Annual Meetings, 2020.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Shaik, M.A.K., Awal, R., and Fares, A.: Improving Irrigation Water Estimator for Texas (IWET): Point with Single Soil Type to Field with Multiple Soil Types, First Conference for Interdisciplinary Student Research (CISR), April 1-2, 2021 (Virtual Conference).

Progress 04/01/19 to 03/31/20

Outputs
Target Audience:Farmers and ranchers, agricultural professionals, researchers, agency representatives, and students Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Three graduate students worked on the project and were trained on how to develop different components of the irrigation scheduling tools and Android app. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Project team members published one journal article. Scientists and the postdoctoral fellow presented the research outputs at local, regional, and national symposiums and conferences. The project tools were introduced to farmers and ranchers, agricultural professionals, researchers, agency representatives and students at the Southern Region Water Conference, AgNR Training Workshop, ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meeting, and AGU Fall Meeting. IrrigWise was also introduced to undergraduate students as a part of the Fundamentals of Agricultural Engineering Course, AGEG 1413. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Install the remaining three weather stations and collect soil moisture data from selected crops. Improve IrrigWise by incorporating weather data from additional weather networks/ stations. Conduct training sessions and seminar presentations to demonstrate the use of IrrigWise to different stakeholders. Publish the outcomes in peer-review journals and present in conferences.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We improved the web-based irrigation scheduling tool, IrrigWise, and the Android app, WeatherAndSoil. IrrigWise uses several databases, including the USDA-NRCS' Soil Survey Geographic Database, rainfall, and evapotranspiration data from multiple weather networks across Texas, and forecasted weather data for the following five days from the National Weather Service. IrrigWise-PRISM extends the use of daily gridded climate data, PRISM (Parameter elevation Regression on Independent Slopes Model), which is available at 30-arcsec (800 meters) and 2.5 arcmin (4 km) resolution across the U.S. The IrrigWise with extended capability in incorporating PRISM data allows IrrigWise-PRISM to establish irrigation scheduling programs across the U.S. for the different crops grown in a specific location and during a particular growing season. The IrrigWise-PRISM allows the user to modify the default values of the crop and soil-related parameters to fit the values of the specific data. The tool tracks the daily status of the different soil water budget components, including irrigation requirements and the near real-time weather data. The tool provides the user the information on when and for how long to irrigate. The tool also predicts the changes in soil water content of the selected field during the next five days based on forecasted weather data and crop water uptakes. The wide use of the tool by the farming and urban communities could help irrigation management of crops and urban landscape in the U.S. We also improved Irrigation Water Estimator for Texas, IWET, a web-based tool for crops and urban landscape irrigation water requirement calculation. All these tools are available on this website: http://irrigwise.pvamu.edu/introduction/index.php. We have been collaborating with TexMesoNet, Texas Water Development Board, and installed three weather stations in three different counties.

Publications

• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Awal, R., Habibi, H., Fares, A., and Deb, S.: Estimating Reference Crop Evapotranspiration under Limited Climate Data in West Texas, Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, 2020, Vol. 28, 100677.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Awal, R., Fares, A., Habibi, H., and Ray, R.L.: Gridded Climate Data based Irrigation Scheduling Tool for Agricultural Crops and Urban Landscapes in the United States, Texas, AGU Fall Meeting 2019, December 9-13, 2019, San Francisco, CA.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Awal, R., Fares, A., and Habibi, H.: Web-Based Irrigation Scheduling Tool: IrrigWise, 2019 ASA-CSSA-SSSA International Annual Meeting, Nov. 10-13, San Antonio, Texas.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Awal, R., Fares, A., Habibi, H., Ray, R., and Daniels, N.: IrrigWise: A new irrigation scheduling tool for agricultural crops and urban landscape in Texas, Southern Region Water Conference 2019, July 23-25, 2019, College Station, TX.

Progress 04/01/18 to 03/31/19

Outputs
Target Audience:Students, academic, research communities and general public Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Graduate and undergraduate students worked on the project and learned to develop different components of the irrigation scheduling tool, Android app, and to analyze climate data. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Project team members published one journal article. Scientists, graduate, and undergraduate students presented the research outputs at local, regional, and national symposiums/conferences. They also presented two seminars in CAHS Seminar Series: one related to the introduction of IrrigWise and WeatherAndSoil Android App and another one related to the outcomes of estimating reference crop evapotranspiration in West Texas under limited climate data. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Improve IrrigWise incorporating additional weather networks of Texas and our weather stations that will be installed in collaboration with TexMesonet. Collect soil moisture data from selected crops and evaluate them Launch IrrigWise in the local server at PVAMU and conduct training sessions to demonstrate the use of IrrigWise to different stakeholders. Improve Android app: WeatherAndSoil Publish the outcomes in peer-review journals and present in conferences

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We developed additional applications to collect weather data from TexMesonet (Texas Water Development Board), Soil Climate Analysis Network (SCAN), USDA NRCS, and Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model (PRISM). We improved irrigation scheduling tool, IrrigWise, with additional features. IrrigWise will help in increasing irrigation water use efficiency in agricultural crops and urban landscape in Texas, eliminating over and under irrigation. The tool selects the nearest weather station based on the location of the user's field. The tool incorporates weather data from two additional weather networks: TexMesonet and SCAN. The tool also incorporates forecasted weather data and calculates reference evapotranspiration using Hargreaves-Samani equation, which provides information on the potential change in soil water content of the selected field during the next five days. The user can decide irrigation considering forecasted soil water content. The tool also sends a daily email to users to provide irrigation recommendation on their plots. We tested the tool in Linux server, Jetstream (IU/TACC)through allocationTG-ENG170027. We also developed an Android app: WeatherAndSoil for site-specific soil and forecasted weather data. We incorporated daily forecasted weather information, which includes precipitation, wind speed, maximum and minimum temperature, and reference evapotranspiration estimated based on Hargreaves and Samani equation. WeatherAndSoil also displays location-specific hourly forecasted weather data, soil type, and soil hydrologic properties. WeatherAndSoil App has a user-friendly interface, and it is very useful for different users, especially farmers and urban residents, which they can use to manage the water management of their crop and lawns. We evaluated the performance of simple temperature based empirical equations to estimate reference evapotranspiration in West Texas using climate data from West Texas Mesonet and PRISM data. We also calibrated these equations to improve their performance in West Texas.

Publications

• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Liu, Q., Awal, R., Fares, A. and Habibi, H.: Developing Android Application for Location Specific Soil and Forecasted Weather Data, Summer Student Research Symposium, August 6, 2018, Prairie View, TX.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Zhang, R., Awal, R., Fares, A. and Habibi, H.: Upgrading Irrigation Water Estimator for Texas (IWET) for Multiple Users, Summer Student Research Symposium, August 6, 2018, Prairie View, TX.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Bhattarai, S., Awal, R., Fares, A. and Habibi, H.: Incorporating Weather Data from Different Weather Networks in the Irrigation Scheduling Tool: IrrigWise, Summer Student Research Symposium, August 6, 2018, Prairie View, TX.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Sharma, R., Awal, R., Fares, A. and Fan, K.: Developing Irrigation Scheduling Tool IrrigWise to Increase Water Use Efficiency in Texas, Land Grant Research Symposium, April 18, 2018, Prairie View, TX.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Awal, R.: Irrigation Scheduling Tool for Agricultural Crops and Urban Landscape in Texas Using a Mobile Web App, Industry Day 2018, April 12, 2018, Prairie View, TX.
• Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Awal, R., Fares, A., and Habibi, H.: Optimum Turf Grass Irrigation Requirements and Corresponding Water-Energy-CO2 Nexus across Harris County, Texas, Sustainability 2019, 11(5), 1440; (https://doi.org/10.3390/su11051440).
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Omari, S.A., Awal, R., Fares, A., Habibi, H. and Bhattarai, S.: Improving Irrigation Scheduling Tool: IrrigWise, 14th Annual Research Symposium, April 11, 2019, Prairie View, TX.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Awal, R., Fares, A., and H. Habibi: An Overview of Irrigation Scheduling Tool: IrrigWise, ARD Research Symposium 2019, March 30 - April 3, 2019, Jacksonville, FL.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Habibi, H., R. Awal, A. Fares, and Q. Liu: WeatherAndSoil: An Android App for Location Specific Soil and Forecasted Weather Data, ARD Research Symposium 2019, March 30 - April 3, 2019, Jacksonville, FL.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Eisa Z., R. Awal, A. Fares, H. Habibi, and A. El Hassan: Analysis of Effects of Soil Types on Irrigation Water Requirements of Some Major Crops, ARD Research Symposium 2019, March 30 - April 3, 2019, Jacksonville, FL.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Awal, R.: Overview of IrrigWise, an Irrigation Scheduling Tool, and WeatherAndSoil, an Android Smart Device App, CAHS Research Seminar Series, 2018, Sept. 20, 2018, Prairie View, TX.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Duong, J., Awal, R., Fares, A. and Habibi, H.: Developing a Web Soil Survey Data Extraction Tool and an Automatic - Irrigation System based on Soil Moisture, Summer Student Research Symposium, August 6, 2018, Prairie View, TX.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Eisa, Z., Awal, R., Fares, A. and Habibi, H.: Effects of Soil Type on Irrigation Water Requirements of Different Crops at Prairie View, Texas, Summer Student Research Symposium, August 6, 2018, Prairie View, TX.

Progress 04/01/17 to 03/31/18

Outputs
Target Audience:Students, academic and research communities. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Graduate and undergraduate students worked on the project and learned to develop different components of the irrigation scheduling tool and to analyze climate data. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The PI/Co-PIs, graduate, and undergraduate students presented the research outputs at local, regional and national symposiums/conferences. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Install weather stations and collect soil moisture data from selected crops. Improve IrrigWise incorporating weather data from additional weather networks of Texas and our weather stations that will be installed during the next reporting period. Make IrrigWise compatible with mobile devices. Conduct training sessions and seminar presentations to demonstrate the use of IrrigWise to different stakeholders.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We developed different applications: (i) to collect weather data from different weather networks across Texas (i.e., West Texas Mesonet, U.S. Climate Reference Network, and Texas ET Network), (ii) to extract soil data of the selected field based on Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO), and (iii) to extract forecasted climate data of the selected station based on forecasted climate data of National Weather Service. We developed a new irrigation scheduling tool, IrrigWise (alpha version) to provide site-specific near real-time irrigation scheduling data for agricultural crops and urban landscape in Texas. The web-based irrigation scheduling tool allows the user to add new fields and select different crops, soils, weather stations and planting dates. The user can modify crop and soil-related default parameters according to the location of the selected field. The user can also extract soil data of the selected field based on Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO). The tool keeps track of the status of the different soil water budget components (crop evapotranspiration, soil water content, water loss due to deep percolation and runoff) on a daily basis using user selected inputs (including irrigation amount) and near real-time weather data. The tabular and graphical outputs of the tool show temporal variation of soil water content in the selected field. We also incorporated forecasted weather data in the tool which provide information on the potential change in soil water content of the selected field in the next five days. We evaluated the performance of different empirical methods and calibrated parameters of empirical methods to estimate reference evapotranspiration in Northwest Texas using climate data from West Texas Mesonet. We also evaluated the performance of some of the spatial interpolation methods to interpolate daily reference evapotranspiration in Northwest Texas. The PI/Co-PIs, graduate, and undergraduate students presented the research outputs at local, regional and national symposiums/conferences.

Publications

• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Cherif, Y., Awal, R. and Fares, A.: Evaluation of Empirical Methods to Estimate Reference Evapotranspiration in Northwest Texas, Summer Student Research Symposium, August 18, 2017, Prairie View, TX.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Sharma, R., Awal, R. and Fares, A.: Developing Automation Scripts for Downloading Climate Data and Estimating Reference Evapotranspiration from U.S. Climate Reference Network, Summer Student Research Symposium, August 18, 2017, Prairie View, TX.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Fan, K., Awal, R. and Fares, A.: Developing Irrigation Scheduling Tool: IrrigWise, Summer Student Research Symposium, August 18, 2017, Prairie View, TX.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Cherif, Y., Awal, R., and Fares, A.: Evaluation and Calibration of Empirical Methods to Estimate Reference Evapotranspiration in Northwest Texas, ASA, CSSA & SSSA International Annual Meeting, October 22-55, 2017, Tampa, FL.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Awal, R., Fares, A., Ray, R., Bayabil, H. and. and Risch, E.: Spatial interpolation of daily reference evapotranspiration in Northwest Texas, ASA, CSSA & SSSA International Annual Meeting, October 22-55, 2017, Tampa, FL.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Cherif, Y., Awal, R., and Fares, A.: Evaluation and Calibration of Empirical Methods for Daily Reference Evapotranspiration Estimation in Northwest Texas, 14th Annual Pathways Research Symposium, November 2-3, 2017, Stephenville, TX.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Sharma, R., Awal, R., Fares, A. and Fan, K.: Developing New Irrigation Scheduling Tool in Texas: IrrigWise, 14th Annual Pathways Research Symposium, November 2-3, 2017, Stephenville, TX.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2017 Citation: Cherif, Y., Awal, R., and Ali F.: Evaluation and Calibration of Empirical Methods for Daily Reference Evapotranspiration Estimation in Northwest Texas, The Scientific Research Symposium, November 13, 2017, Prairie View, TX.