“Network” is a key word for our time, but few networks are as deeply rooted in the territory as irrigation systems. Until now, however, the thousands of kilometres of canals, embankments and sluice gates that are essential to agriculture have remained firmly anchored in the physical world.

Now, things are changing: thanks to data collected by sensors, satellites and drones, and the software that analyses them, water management is becoming increasingly digital.

Technology promises to optimise water use, prevent flooding and improve the efficiency of a system that is crucial to Italy. Paradoxically, it is precisely the world of big data – often, and rightly, criticised for its high water consumption – that could provide a decisive contribution to preserving this precious resource.

The benefits of “smart water”

ANBI, the National Association of Land and Irrigation Water Management Consortia, brings together nearly all Italian irrigation consortia and manages over 231,000 kilometres of canals. This network, which runs parallel to natural waterways, can become “a multifunctional container of intelligence”, made up of “smart water”, in the words of ANBI Director General Massimo Gargano. “They will become interactive canals”, he says, capable of providing real-time information and analyses useful in combating waste and hydrogeological risk, offering an essential contribution in a context increasingly threatened by drought and extreme events.

Installing the necessary technologies, he explains, “is now extremely simple; the real challenge lies in adoption rather than implementation”. However, public funding is needed to deploy them on a large scale, he adds.

From smart sluice gates to digital services

With its 135 kilometres and a dense network serving one of Italy’s most productive regions, the Canale Emiliano Romagnolo (CER) is both a strategic hydraulic infrastructure and a testing ground for innovation.

The innovations, explains Raffaella Zucaro, director of the CER Consortium, are both infrastructural and digital. They begin with smart sluice gates, which open and close based on water-level data and weather forecasts, regulating flows through a semi-automated system. This has a twofold effect: more efficient irrigation, faster emergency response. There are 16 automated sluice gates, with a further 46 planned. The consortium will complement these with multi-parameter probes that monitor water quality, enabling timely interventions in the event of anomalies.

Alongside infrastructure, CER is developing smart services for farms. One example is Irriframe, a decision-support system for farmers promoted by ANBI, which processes weather and soil data to indicate when to irrigate and how much water to use for different crops.

The service, Zucaro explains, is already widespread in northern Italy, while adoption in central and southern regions is more diffuse. The next step will be integration with fertigation, combining data on water and nutrients.

Finally, at the Acqua Campus Research Centre, artificial intelligence models and algorithms are being tested that show water savings of up to 170 cubic metres of water per hectare per year.

Supply chain innovation

Digital transformation encompasses the entire sector, including specialised farms. Almaviva Bluebit collaborates with various consortia to install sensors, collect data and build simulation models. In this context, CEO Franco Masenello highlights the usefulness of “digital twins”, which make it possible to test complex scenarios – from water scarcity to flow management – before they occur in the real world. Doing this, he adds, requires the accurate mapping of the canals, which is carried out using advanced survey techniques.

Digitalising an irrigation network, he explains, is more complex than digitising a drinking water network, due to the variability of climate, soil conditions and agricultural practices. There is also a cultural dimension. “The agricultural sector is cautious”, he observes, but attitudes are changing. The real turning point will be in the mindset, before the technology: “No longer taking water as long as it is available, but only what is needed, when it is needed.”

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