Space4IRRIG presents MEO-Irrigation, the tool for monitoring irrigated plots and their crop rotation

Published on 02/10/2023

With the MEO-Irrigation demonstrator, the Space4IRRIG project has laid the technical foundations for a powerful tool for farmers and water managers. At a time when water resources are under considerable pressure, the latter need exhaustive knowledge of the plots irrigated and the volumes of water withdrawn for this purpose.

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Thanks to the MEO-Irrigation web-mapping platform, users can access accurate and up-to-date information, promoting more efficient and sustainable water management and helping to preserve this vital resource for future generations. © MEOSS

At the end of July 2023, MEOSS and CESBIO, co-pilots of the Space4IRRIG project, presented the results of 18 months' work under the SCO label. As announced in the progress report of 16 March 2023, the MEO-Irrigation service is operational and the business model has been defined, with many prospects for turning the project into a success. According to Thomas Ferrero, founder of MEOSS, "the user test phase was a success, with relatively high response rates and satisfaction levels. These indicators show a real interest in the service developed". MEO-Irrigation thus completes the range of WaterManagement services offered by the young Toulouse-based company.

The MEO-Irrigation service

MEO-Irrigation uses a web mapping interface from which you can extract numerical indicators to monitor crop irrigation and assess the total surface area irrigated, enabling you to anticipate water requirements and tensions.

Working with Sentinel-1 radar data and Sentinel-2 optical data at plot level, the system aggregates the data to produce statistics and analyses at commune, canton and even catchment level to gain a better understanding of local practices.

MEO-Irrigation is the core business of MEOSS, integrating previously developed elements such as the WaterReserve service (inventory and monitoring of water bodies by satellite developed as part of the SCO MEO-Climate project) and water quality indices, as well as public data relating to declarations of volumes of water withdrawn for irrigation. This gives users a complete picture of the state of water resources.

◀ Demonstrating the potential of its tool, MEOSS offers various ways of using and aggregating data from the system in the form of statistical reports. © MEOSS

A commercial service supported by research and public experts
The tools needed to optimize irrigation water management are at the heart of current concerns and are the subject of strong demand from public services to the BIOsphere Space Studies Centre CESBIO (Centre d'Études Spatiales de la BIOsphère), which has been working on satellite monitoring of irrigated plots for a number of years. As a research laboratory, its role is to develop methods but not to manage and supply a production service. For this reason, CESBIO approached MEOSS, which creates services based on satellite imagery and cartographic data. To ensure that they meet the needs of the regions, the two co-pilots of the project have surrounded themselves with partners specializing in agricultural planning (Occitania and PACA Chambers of Agriculture), water managers (SCP and Smavd) and technical experts (Tetis, BRGM, CNES).

Outlook

With MEO-Irrigation having been developed in two pilot areas, the Loiret department and the Val de Durance catchment area (Bouches-du-Rhône department), MEOSS is working hard to roll out its system on a national scale.

In order to offer an even more comprehensive service, the company is pursuing its innovative R&D in the field of water and irrigation, a dynamic that includes the EO4AgriWater project. Awarded the SCO label in March 2023, this project forms an alliance with INSIGHT, which also specializes in processing remote sensing data, applied to drought in New Caledonia.

Finally, thanks to the strong link that has been created between CESBIO and MEOSS, avenues are currently being explored to strengthen and perpetuate the transfer of methods from CESBIO to MEOSS.

We'll leave the final word to Thomas Ferrero, who praises the SCO label that has supported the development of Space4IRRIG: "Thanks to this project and the other services developed within the SCO framework, MEOSS has gained a major competitive advantage in the space market applied to irrigation water, as well as recognition from the players involved. In particular, this has enabled us to respond to two public invitations to tender for water management as part of the France 2030 plan, and we're waiting for the results”.🤞

Visit the project page to find out more about the MEO-Irrigation service, consult the product sheet or contact MEOSS.