A Note About the Future

By Michael Gutierrez

Working in water research in Florida affords us plenty of excitement. 2017 certainly had its highlights. In addition to our regular efforts of communicating best practices in irrigation in both landscape and ag, this year marked the conclusion of two lengthy studies and the launch of several others. We also celebrated some notable achievements, some bittersweet departures and some welcome arrivals. Let’s get into the specifics as we look back at the year that was for IrriGator and UF-ABE.

Start At The Beginning

Everything began on a high note in January when one of our better blog entries of 2016 was adapted for a feature in Irrigation Today - the Irrigation Association’s quarterly publication about all things irrigation. Read along as Dr. Michael Dukes and I get to the bottom of whether or not one can install too many water-saving devices on an irrigation controller.

Can you have too many water saving sensors on your timer? We tell you all about it in the Jan 2017 Irrigation Today: https://t.co/DoksFYmK4d pic.twitter.com/HTPlkaDjaO

— UF/IFAS IrriGator (@IrriGatorUF) January 23, 2017

Another immediate benefit to all of IFAS this year was the addition of new data and water faculty. Recognized as the Environmentally Resilient Resource-Efficient Land Use Cohort, many of us had our first opportunity to meet these experts and learn about their work during the 2017 Urban Landscape Summit. I'm especially excited about Dr. Eban Bean. Dr. Bean is not only involved in forward-thinking research in urban stormwater, but he also eagerly invites audiences into his work by way of a strong digital presence on Twitter - smartly employing tweet threads and visual content to inform and educate. Watch for more from Dr. Bean et al. on IrriGator and Twitter in 2018!

Take a minute to save 💰& 💦 by cutting your irrigation to 1d/wk this weekend as we fall back an hour. pic.twitter.com/wWuaOcRerI

— Eban Bean (@EbanBean) November 1, 2017

...One To Go
While I’m on the topic of communicating research, this year I continued on my quest to interview all five of IFAS’s regional specialized agents in water. See my discussions with Drs. Mary Lusk and Charles Barrett and get up to date on the water issues in their areas of the state. Hopefully, 2018 will be the year I finally speak with the elusive Andrea Albertin of Florida’s NW district. You can also follow the work of all the water RSAs on the IFAS Extension blog.

We talk with Dr. Natalie Nelson about #scicomm and the focus of her new position @NCState_BAE! https://t.co/EFz7jPcvPu pic.twitter.com/jME47J6Xv1

— UF/IFAS IrriGator (@IrriGatorUF) August 16, 2017

Summer 17
As new faculty was finding their place among the Gator Nation, many of our brightest graduate students were setting off for new endeavors elsewhere. Accomplished researcher and popular IrriGator contributor Dr. Natalie Nelson successfully defended her PhD during summer and began the fall term as part of NC State’s BAE department. Masters student Eliza Breder defended her research based on the (just concluded) Orange County Smart Irrigation Study and moved on to lend her data skills to Suwannee River Water Management District. And landscape water-use expert Dr. Mackenzie Boyer defended her PhD as well, just before welcoming her third child into the world. Click on the respective links above to read interviews with these stellar UF-ABE alums.

Next stop: Detroit, MI

There were other ABE highlights this summer and most were celebrated during ASABE’s Annual International Meeting in Spokane, WA. Dr. Michael Dukes was formally inducted as an ASABE Fellow. Dr. Kati Migliaccio was recognized with the 2017 Gunlogson Countryside Engineering Award. Biomass Conversion PhD candidate Joe Sagues won first place in the Boyd-Scott Graduate Research Competition. And ABE’s plucky robotic squad bested a host of other teams to finish 4th in the robotics design competition. 2018’s AIM event is slated for Detroit, MI. I’ll be there collaborating with ASABE on digital content again. In the meantime, stay tuned for student competition videos from Spokane debuting here in January.

Ends and Initiations

As mentioned above, some long-term research work concluded this year. I made my final field visit for the Orange County Smart Irrigation Study in October and the final task report was filed this month. ABE PhD student Maria Zamora oversaw the third and final year of the nutrient management best practices study we affectionately refer to as SVAEC because it's based at the IFAS ag extension center in Live Oak.

Maria Zamora presents research in Honduras during summer

This project set the foundation for the ambitious undertaking known as FACETS which we’ll cover extensively here in 2018. And while 2016’s work was making the rounds at conferences this fall, the Dukes group finished their most recent product test with the IrriGreen Genius sprinkler. This zone parameter-adjusting rotor from the future went head-to-head with traditional rotors during summer and fall. I especially enjoyed working with this device because while preparing the research plot it put me back in the field digging trenches and cutting/gluing pipe in the summer sun. Once a tech always a tech.

Looking Ahead

There’s much to look forward to in water research in 2018. As for me, I’ll be watching from South Florida again as I am now part of Broward County’s Naturescape Irrigation Service. But one cannot specialize in outdoor water-use and not be cognizant of the research and education work ABE and IFAS does. I learned from the best there and take that insight with me wherever I go. And because words and visual media are my favorite means for communicating what I know and showcasing what other experts are working on, I assure you this will continue uninterrupted.

Irrigation Show & Education Conference 2016: A Student’s Perspective

Last week, UF Graduate Student Maria Vrachioli attended the Irrigation Association’s Irrigation Show and Education Conference as a participant in the immersive E3 Program for students and instructors. This is Ms. Vrachioli’s report back.

I am a third year PhD student in the Food and Resource Economics (FRE) Department in the University of Florida.  As an economist, I have focused on creating applied mathematical models to analyze water efficiency and productivity in the agricultural sector, where the ever increasing demand for food is challenging us to develop more efficient and sustainable ways of exploiting our natural resources. 

Maria Vrachioli - PhD Candidate, UF

Given that agriculture is the biggest consumer of fresh water in the world, irrigation is at the epicenter of this dilemma. To this end, my doctoral dissertation will be focused on understanding how the adoption of new irrigation technologies by farmers can allow them to use a scarce water resource more efficiently, while maximizing their profits. With the support of colleagues at the World Bank, this analysis will be applied on a data base of water consumption and agricultural production in Morocco.

E3 Program Ready

Attending the 2016 Irrigation Show and Education Conference as an E3 Learner will be a good way for me to bridge my academic research on agricultural water use with the latest technologies and practices in irrigation. I took two courses during the event: 

• Agricultural Irrigation Specialist
• Principles of Irrigation: Agriculture

Classroom POV: Irrigation is part theory and practice

Reflection

These courses gave me a really good base on which I can build my future research and let me understand deeply the terminology used by the experts in the irrigation field. I would say that I enjoyed both of the courses, but the Principles of Irrigation in Agriculture course was a little bit more interesting for me as through this 2-day course I was afforded a good review of all the information I learned in different irrigation classes at university.

In the General Session presentation

One of the things that I found really surprising was despite the fact that we have so many efficient irrigation technologies available for farmers, sometimes training is lacking for them to properly adopt new irrigation technology. This results in less efficient irrigation practices and less profits for the farmers.

I spent many hours in the show floor of the IA event and I was really surprised by all the new and innovative technologies presented there. You could find all kinds of companies related to agriculture and landscape irrigation.

Hear the Bringing Water to Life Podcast live from the expo floor

Advice for 2017

Attending the Irrigation Show was an amazing experience for me and I strongly recommend students to attend it in the future. I strongly believe that applying to E3 cannot only help you build on your theoretical and practical skills through the courses, but also it is the best way to expand your network and why not get in contact with your future employer in the irrigation industry.

See you in Orlando, FL!!!

Focusing Irrigation Conservation Programs to Maximize Savings

By Mackenzie Boyer

Want to know how much potential a water utility customer has to conserve irrigation? First you need to know how much water they’re using. What about figuring this out for every customer in a utility? You’ll want to check out our recently published article “Mining for Water: Using Billing Data to Characterize Residential Irrigation Demand.” 

Treasure Trove

A utility’s monthly water billing records can hold a wealth of information - a gold mine, we would say. The monthly records, even when water meters measure only indoor and irrigation water combined, can provide a great insight into irrigation behavior of individual customers. And if the utility also has parcel identification data linked to their billing records? Jackpot. 

Research area

Tampa Bay Water just happened to have some very detailed, very comprehensive billing data for their six member governments (Pasco County, New Port Richey, Pinellas County, St. Petersburg, Hillsborough County, and Tampa). Our analysis of their data used over 30 million monthly billing records of over 165,000 customers - comprehensive, to say the least. The monthly total water use (indoor and outdoor combined) and parcel data were used to estimate each customer’s monthly irrigation demand (what we estimate customers actually used for irrigation). Each customer’s monthly gross irrigation required (GIR, what we estimate a landscape actually needed to be well-watered) was estimated using parcel, weather, and soil data.

Managing and manipulating the data required some heavy computing power. The statistical programs SAS and R were used, with R selected specifically to run a series of 875,000 calculations at UF’s High Capacity Computing Center. (It still took the computing center over a week to run all the equations.) ArcGIS was used to map customer locations and determine their site-specific weather and soil conditions. We grouped customers by their irrigation habits by comparing their demand to GIR (how much they irrigated compared to how much their landscape needed). Our groups were: high, medium, low and occasional irrigators.

Stay the Course

We found that many, many customers in the Tampa Bay region do not regularly irrigate (our occasional irrigator group). For this 85% of customers, the old adage “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” holds true. These customers should not be actively recruited for conservation programs because we don’t want to inadvertently increase their irrigation by recommending irrigation practices that use more water than their current practices.

Each occasional irrigator did not irrigate much, but the group was so large that the occasional irrigators were responsible for 51% of irrigation utility-wide. In contrast, only 2% of customers were classified as high users, and these customers were responsible for 9% of the irrigation demand.

Keys to Success

Successful irrigation conservation programs are far from one size fits all. Conservation programs should be targeted to the high user customers to maximize the water savings potential. Utilities often have the tools in their historical monthly billing records (even without the comprehensive data of Tampa Bay Water) to estimate how much irrigation customers use. Using this knowledge, they can direct conservation efforts to those who could benefit the most.

Make it work: Methodologies for successfully implementing smart irrigation controllers

Encouraging the use of smart technologies for residential landscapes has become a popular trend in water conservation and rebate programs by water utilities and agencies looking for ways to decrease waste due to inefficient irrigation.  Generally, these technologies can be separated into two categories (Figure 1):

•  evapotranspiration-based irrigation controllers (ET) The ET controller uses weather data, inputs chosen by the user based on landscape characteristics, and proprietary algorithms to determine when to irrigate and how much to apply. 
• soil moisture sensors (SMS). The SMS measures the amount of moisture in the soil and skips irrigation if the soil is too wet.  

Figure 1. Examples of ET controllers and SMS systems (clockwise from top left): Rain Bird ESP-SMT, Weathermatic SL1600, Rain Bird SMRT-Y, Toro Precision Wireless, Toro Intelli-Sense, and Baseline WaterTec S100.

If at once you don’t succeed

A recent ET controller study was planned and implemented in Hillsborough County, FL.  A community-wide analysis of water billing data was completed for the county and the three communities that showed the highest estimated irrigation were Apollo Beach, Riverview, and Valrico.  A total of 36 volunteers were selected across the three communities with 21 of them receiving Toro Intelli-sense ET controllers.  All ET controllers were programmed with UF/IFAS-recommended program settings (ET+Edu).  The remaining volunteers were monitored, but did not receive an ET controller (comparison).

Unfortunately, results were not as positive as anticipated.  Though the ET controllers decreased irrigation application by 23% to 41%, irrigation increased by 14% for homes in Valrico and 54% for homes in Riverview when compared to the respective volunteers without technologies. Irrigation was high within these two communities, but the volunteers were not necessarily over-irrigators.  It was clear that there must be a better way to identify the utility customers that would benefit from smart technologies. 

More technology, bigger canvas

A new study was planned for Orange County, FL, that would evaluate the water conservation potential of both types of smart technologies when installed on homes with excessive irrigation habits.  Instead of focusing on communities, all customers in the Orange County Utilities service area were evaluated individually for trends in over-irrigation.  The UF/IFAS recommendation for irrigation is based on a soil water balance approach where the change in soil moisture depends on evaporation, transpiration, rainfall, and irrigation (Figure 2).  

Figure 2. The soil water balance is used to estimate the amount of irrigation needed to account for evaporation and transpiration losses when rainfall is not sufficient.

Landscape Irrigation Ratios (LIR) were calculated for every month over a five year span for each utility customer.  The LIR is a ratio of measured irrigation to UF/IFAS recommendations for the same month.  An LIR greater than 1 indicates over-irrigation whereas an LIR less than 1 indicates conservative irrigation practices.  Customers were considered for the study when a minimum of three months in three consecutive years had ratios greater than 1.5.  Out of 140,000 accounts analyzed, there were only 7,408 accounts that exhibited this behavior and out of these accounts, there were 843 volunteers willing to learn more about the study. 

After a detailed evaluation of many of the volunteering homes, the study included 139 participants located in seven communities across the county.  There were 28 that did not receive a technology (comparison), 55 that received a Rain Bird ESP-SMT (ET), and 56 that received a Baseline WaterTec S100 (SMS).  There were 28 homes of each technology that received additional educational opportunities and UF/IFAS recommended program settings (+Edu). 

Figure 3. Average landscape irrigation ratios from before the Orange County smart controller study began.  Irrigation trends were high with 6-8.3 times the recommendation.

The average historical LIRs (five years of monthly irrigation application to monthly UF/IFAS recommended irrigation) for Orange County study subjects ranged from 6.0 to 8.3, meaning that these volunteers were applying 6 to 8.3 times the amount of irrigation needed (Figure 3).  When considering historical LIRs in the aforementioned Hillsborough County study, they ranged from 1.5 to 2.4 indicating that they were also over-irrigating but were already much more conservative than the Orange County participants (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Average landscape irrigation ratios from before the Hillsborough County ET controller study began.  These volunteers had some over-irrigation, but did not exhibit signs of excessive water use.

Diving into the numbers

Irrigation by the comparisons in Orange County decreased from historical trends (6.9 before the study, 4.3 during the study).  Though the real reason is unknown, possibilities for the behavior adjustment include highly publicized droughts encouraging water conservation, awareness of being monitored for the study, or even repairing leaks discovered during their initial system evaluation.  Implementing the technologies had a larger effect, reducing the LIRs to 2-3.3 (Figure 5).  The additional education and programming was important for the SMS, reducing the ratio significantly from 2.9 (SMS) to 2.0 (SMS+Edu).  However, all of these treatments are still well above a value of 1, which is the goal, so more savings are possible.

Figure 5. Average landscape irrigation ratios that occurred during the smart controller study in Orange County.  The technologies were effective at reducing water use, but there’s room for improvement.

The takeaway

Smart technologies should be focused on homes that exhibit habitual excessive irrigation.  In situations where marginal water savings are possible, such as in the Hillsborough County ET controller study, a soil moisture sensor with UF/IFAS recommended installation and programming is recommended.  These sensors can be used in situations of deficit irrigation schedules whereas ET controllers can increase water use to maintain a well-watered landscape.  Both technologies were effective when used in the right situations.

Thanks to Hillsborough County Water Resource Services, Tampa Bay Water, Orange County Utilities, Water Research Foundation, St. Johns River Water Management District, and South Florida Water Management District for providing the support to complete these projects.  These studies were co-authored by Michael D. Dukes.

About the author:

Stacia L. Davis, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of irrigation engineering with the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center located at the Red River Research Station, Bossier City, LA.  She studied the water conservation potential of smart technologies at the University of Florida prior to moving to Louisiana.

Irrigation principles and management? Yes please!

Fall 2014 heralds an exciting new era in irrigation graduate education at University of Florida with a hot-off-the-press course offered by Drs. Kati Migliaccio and Michael Dukes in the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department.

This course will take advantage of the distance education (DE) format and thus be available to all UF graduate students - no matter the location!

Take a peek at one of the new technologies that we'll use in the course:

Turf app

Additional examples of what you'll learn:

How to perform a hydrometer test (like the pros do it).

How to use a tensiometer to schedule irrigation.

How all the components work in an irrigation system.

How to fix leaks...not leeks.

Register today

So - if you are looking for something new and exciting to do this fall - check out: 

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ABE 6933 Irrigation Principles and Management 

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And now....the top 5 reasons to take this course

5. New UF/IFAS videos will be showcased in the course for the first time on different irrigation systems throughout Florida.

4. Posting pics of irrigation is cool.

3. With DE course flexibility, fall is the new summer.

2. Materials are fresh off the press - showcasing the newest irrigation technologies.

1. You can now fix your parents' irrigation system - their investment in your education has paid off!