Abstract

AgGateway's PAIL project emerged from an initiative by the Northwestern Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA) to optimize the use of energy (and consequently, water) in irrigation. It became clear that a major obstacle to the scalability of this pursuit was the lack of interoperability among the manufacturers of irrigation equipment, environmental sensors, farm management information systems (FMIS) and service providers. NEEA identified developing an industry-wide agreement on data standards as the first step needed to overcome that obstacle; PAIL was created for that purpose.

There have been three major phases in the PAIL project:

1) Requirements-gathering: this included capturing user stories, modeling irrigation processes, and capturing data requirements for exchange.

2) Alignment: Much work went into aligning PAIL's data requirements with the Core Documents model for field operations captured in the SPADE project (Plan, Observations & Measurements, Recommendation, Work Order, Work Record). A second line of alignment work included harmonizing with the ISO 19156 model for Observations and Measurements, in the context of a strong need expressed by some project participants to develop a compact schema that would minimize the transmission of redundant data, and seeking to enable bandwidth-limited data loggers to directly source data from the field. A third set of alignment activities was centered around harmonizing with the ADAPT Common Object Model.

3) Synthesis: Working PAIL data requirements back into ADAPT-compatible objects, and developing schemas to serialize the objects to XML, JSON, etc.

It was agreed between AgGateway and ASABE that PAIL deliverables would be presented to ASABE as a proposed national standard, and the ASABE X632 project was created to contain subsequent work.

The proposed standard is divided into three parts: Definition of core concepts and common data objects (such as identification, time, space and data pedigree); Observations and Measurements (which represents the irrigation - specific implementation of ISO 19156 in an ADAPT-compatible context); and Operations (which represents the irrigation-specific implementation of AgGateway’s Core Documents model). This paper describes the three parts of the proposed standard, along with pertinent background information regarding the PAIL development process.

PAIL provides an information technology foundation for effective irrigation management.  The proposed standard will facilitate integration of disparate sources of irrigation data, and will enable a new generation of FMIS functionality that makes precision irrigation more practical, and thus more practiced.

Keywords: irrigation, irrigation technology, precision irrigation, standards, information management.  

Introduction

(Opening sentence)

As the world's population increases, food and water resources will be ever more strained. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that farmers will have to produce 70% more food by 2050 to meet the needs of the world's expected 9-billion-strong population. That amounts to one billion tons more wheat, rice and other cereals and two hundred million more tons of beef and other livestock.

(General Problem)

(Farmland not increasing)

The amount of land available for farming is not going to increase. 

But as it is, most available farmland is already being farmed, and in ways that decrease its productivity through practices that lead to soil erosion and wasting of water.

This means that to meet the world's future food needs, a major "sustainable intensification" of agricultural productivity on existing farmland will be necessary, the FAO said in its report, State of the World's Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture.

(Climate is changing)

Although the impact of climate change on crop yields varies from region o region, a global average 32–39% of the maize, rice, wheat and soybean year-to-year yield variability is explained by climate variability. This translates into climate explained annual production fluctuations of ~22 million tons, ~3 million tons, ~9 million tons and ~2 million tons for maize, rice, wheat and soybean, respectively. 
(Ray, D. K. et al. Climate variation explains a third of global crop yield variability. Nat. Commun. 6:5989 doi: 10.1038/ncomms6989 (2015).

Climate change, including climate variability, has a direct impact on water availability and irrigation. Notably the loss of ground and surface water, as well as increases in evapotranspiration will place greater stress on the limited availability of fresh water. (Connor J, Schwabe K, King D, Kaczan D, Kirby M (2009) Impacts of climate change on lower Murray irrigation. Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 53: 437–456.)Multiple studies have concluded that climate change will have an impact on water availability for agriculture. Notably the loss of ground and surface water, as well as increases in evapotranspiration will place greater stress on the limited availability of fresh water. (Connor J, Schwabe K, King D, Kaczan D, Kirby M (2009) Impacts of climate change on lower Murray irrigation. Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 53: 437–456.)

Data on water withdrawals for US states (1985–2005) show that both climate change and resulting water deficits are highly positively correlated with moisture deficit (precipitation - PET). If current trends hold, climate change would increase agricultural demand for irrigation in 2090 by 4.5 -21.9 million ha. Without significant increases in irrigation efficiency, climate change would also increase the average irrigation rate from 7,963 to 8,400–10,415 m³ha. 
(McDonald RI, Girvetz EH (2013) Two Challenges for U.S. Irrigation Due to Climate Change: Increasing Irrigated Area in Wet States and Increasing Irrigation Rates in Dry States. PLoS ONE 8(6): e65589. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0065589)

(Irrigation is important)

Irrigation provides an important way to manage crop production risk

Precision irrigation has can increase both water and energy efficiencies by optimally matching the water requirements for a given crop within a specific area of a field, thereby either reducing costs or increasing yield for the same inputs of water and energy. Integrated precision irrigation solutions are built on the premise that growers and irrigators can:

• Based on historical, current, and predictive field conditions, determine the timing, amount, and spatial pattern of water application on a field
• Control the application of exactly what is required (how much, when and where it is applied)
• Capture a record of the amount and spatial pattern of what was actually applied, and when and where it was applied
• Understand the soil and crop responses in order to plan the next irrigation application

(But water is scarce)

But water is increasingly in short supply

(.. yet mismanaged )

However, few growers use scientific irrigation scheduling methods. Among the reasons that growers give for not adopting precision irrigation practices are:

• Lacking information that helps them make a good business decision
• Lack of integration of the various parts of an irrigation system
• Lack of actionable data at the time when irrigation plans to be made and/or changed

(NEEA starts stuff)

Agricultural irrigation accounts for 85% of the Pacific Northwest's region’s total agricultural electrical energy use. In November 2011, the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEAA) brought together an important cross-section of the industry to discuss optimization of agricultural water and energy.  In these meetings the lack of data standards was identified as a fundamental barrier to reaching the goal of reducing water and energy usage. The participants initiated the Precision Ag Irrigation Language (PAIL) project within AgGateway, a non-profit organization focused on helping growers, ag retailers, and supply chain partners capture, transfer, and manage data. The goal of the PAIL project is to provide an industry-wide format that will enable the exchange and use of data from irrigation management systems, which are currently stored in a variety of proprietary formats. 

(Interoperability)

The group discovered that, even if the desire to cooperate collaborate was there, interoperability challenges, such as thoese

(Data standards)

The NEAA-sponsored group quickly agreed that data exchange standards were the starting point.

(Specific problem)

There's no 11783 for this stuff

(Organizations involved)

NEAA AgGateway

(PAIL)

(Goals of this paper)

This paper describes the three parts of the proposed standard, along with pertinent background information regarding the PAIL development process.

PAIL Fundamentals

Three major phases 1) Requirements-gathering 2) Alignment 3) Synthesis

Requirements-gathering

This included capturing user stories, modeling irrigation processes, and capturing data requirements for exchange.

Alignment

With Core Documents

Much work went into aligning PAIL's data requirements with the Core Documents model for field operations captured in the SPADE project (Plan, Observations & Measurements, Recommendation, Work Order, Work Record)

With ISO 19156

Limited-bandwidth a concern

With ADAPT

A third set of alignment activities was centered around harmonizing with the ADAPT Common Object Model.

Synthesis

Working PAIL data requirements back into ADAPT-compatible objects, and developing schemas to serialize the objects to XML, JSON, etc.

Discussion

Conclusions