Solution Overview
Agriculture accounts for about 60% of China's total water use, and per-capita water resources are only a quarter of the world average. Flood and furrow irrigation typically put less than 50% of the water applied to productive use. Some parts of a field are over-watered while others run short, fertilizer is spread too broadly, and labor stays expensive. The National Water Conservation Action Plan and the 14th Five-Year Plan for Building a Water-Saving Society both call for more efficient farm water use and wider adoption of high-efficiency irrigation. This solution uses IoT sensing to collect soil moisture and weather data in real time, then applies crop water-demand models to run drip, sprinkler, and micro-sprinkler systems only when the crop needs water.
The same design covers open fields, orchards, protected agriculture, and landscaping. Sensors track soil moisture, temperature, and electrical conductivity (EC), and those readings are read together with rainfall, evaporation, and solar data from the weather station so irrigation decisions follow the field. A fertigation module meters fertilizer into the irrigation lines at a set ratio. In practice, operators typically cut water use by more than 30% and fertilizer use by about 20%, while yield and quality improve.
Policy and Technical Standards
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs lists smart irrigation as a priority in the Digital Agriculture and Rural Development Plan, and high-standard farmland projects are expected to include water-saving irrigation. GB/T 50485, Technical Standard for Micro-Irrigation Engineering, and SL 103, Technical Code for Sprinkler Irrigation Engineering, set the design requirements. Soil-moisture work can follow the Soil Moisture Monitoring Specification for sensor placement and data collection. Field devices should use LoRa, NB-IoT, or another method that meets the Agricultural IoT Application Standard, so readings still get through where the signal is weak.
