Enhancing water management with intelligent irrigation systems using edge computing, machine learning and IoT

Agriculture is responsible for about 70% of freshwater withdrawals, and water scarcity and inefficient methods of water use remain threats to food security. The traditional way of irrigation causes more water loss and requires innovative solutions to optimize water distribution. This research provides an overview of an intelligent irrigation system, which combines the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning (ML), and edge computing to optimize water usage and improve crop production. The system uses IoT sensors and edge devices to collect data on the environment and estimate the need for irrigation in real-time. It combines machine learning with system components like the Soil Monitoring Unit (SMU) and Water Management Unit (WMU) to provide scalable, real-time and efficient irrigation management. It is deployed locally at the edge, without the need for cloud computing, has the potential to integrate multi-sensor fusion for storm detection, and offers multiple ML models in a modular, low cost system that can be adapted to various agricultural settings. To optimize irrigation schedules, six supervised machine-learning models were used, such as Decision Tree (DT), Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) and Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP). DT and RF had the highest classification accuracy of 93% and R 2 regression scores of 0.98 respectively, indicating high prediction reliability. However, Support Vector Machine (SVM) did not do that well, with an accuracy percentage of 58% and an R 2 score of 0.18. Although more complex, RF’s accuracy is a great option for larger applications and DT balances efficiency and scalability. The findings corroborate the utility of water efficient irrigation system and its prospect in augmenting productivity of agriculture. Future work will include expanding the field trials and developing hybrid models to further improve adaptability of the system in different agricultural environments. The findings of this research can offer understanding for sustainable farming practices, that are essential when it comes to water scarcity and food security in the global context.