Drip irrigation is a micro-irrigation technology that has been shown to conserve water and significantly increase crop yield. This technology could be particularly beneficial to the world's estimated 500 million smallholder farmers, but these systems tend to be financially inaccessible to this population. Drip systems require costly components including a pipe network, emitters, a pump and power system. Due to limited access to electricity, many smallholder farmers would require off-grid solutions. Designing reliable, low cost, off-grid drip irrigation systems for smallholder farms could significantly reduce the barrier to adoption.

This paper builds on an integrated solar-powered drip irrigation model that was shown to improve upon an existing software. The model is validated through a set of field trials where two solar powered drip systems were installed and run on small farms in Jordan and Morocco for a full growing season in 2018. The insights gained from the field trials were formed into design requirements for future iterations of the model.

Key insights from the field trials that can be applied to future models include: simulating the system operation, with the possibility of automation (as the operation point cannot be assumed to remain constant) adding the capability to input a user's irrigation schedule and specified design, including locally available components and their life cycle costs, and incorporating a reasonable metric to validate the system reliability.


Validation of an Analytical Model to Lower the Cost of Solar-Powered Drip Irrigation Systems for Smallholder Farmers in the Mena Region

Division / Sponsors: 
Design Engineering Division and Computers & Information In Engineering Division


Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/IDETC-CIE/IDETC-CIE2020/volume/83907

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