Climate change occurs, changes in Earth's climate system result in new weather patterns that last for at least a few decades. Most of Northern Europe was affected by drought during the summer of 2018. This accentuates the need for irrigation and improved tools for irrigation management, that can be more effective, knowing when, where and how much the irrigation should be. The thesis contains a study on the creation of an irrigation support system. The system takes into account parameters about the soil moisture, evapotranspiration (ET) and precipitation. Evapotranspiration is calculated by the type of crop and weather parameters. All the weather data used in this project was downloaded from Danish Meteorology Institute (DMI). Soil moisture information is coming from remotely sensed information, while the type of soil is implemented in the decision support system. The study area is Viborg municipality, which is located in central north Denmark in an area with agricultural production. The test time period of the project was from March till July of 2018. In the final stage, the model created presents the amount of water that farmers need to irrigate in specific areas in their fields. The test fields chosen were in Viborg municipality and had potato, carrot and corn crops.
This project is an example of how geoinformatics and remote sensing products can offer the possibility of better management of water resources and reduced environmental impact of agricultural production. The output can benefit Danish farmers, and the export potential to other regions of the World is large. The decision support system created can provide information about water needs. The users can have information about crop water requirements to optimize irrigation.