Open innovation Hub for Irrigation Systems in Mediterranean agriculture – HubIS

Irrigation performance in the Mediterranean region is below expectations and well below its technological potential. Modernization of irrigation followed a top-down approach not always adapted to the needs and capacities of farmers. This proposal claims that bridging the actual irrigation performance gap requires inverting the process to a bottom-up interdisciplinary approach, in an open innovation environment making intensive use of emerging technologies. The HubIS consortium integrates 13 partners complementing each other in expertise, training and education tasks, and research vs. extension priorities.
The objective of the consortium is to narrow the irrigation performance gap and to improve sustainability of irrigated agriculture in the Mediterranean region, by favouring the emergence and adoption of co-innovations at multiple scales (farm to basin or aquifer scale). The project will adopt a participatory action research strategy by implementing a Mediterranean irrigation innovation hub that will link site-specific hubs located in representative irrigated agroecosystems. Each site-hub will have a Fab-Lab targeting specific innovations according to the priorities of the corresponding agrosystems. The type of innovations considered in the project range from a novel framework for upscaling irrigation efficiency to advanced open and web-based methods using low-cost spatially distributed information (remote sensing, ground sensors) for site-specific management and automatic operation. Innovations are also expected on application equipment and cropping systems. Environmental conservation will be addressed by developing control systems of return flow quality, and optimization of irrigation and crop management. This project ambitions to halve the current irrigation performance gap, in terms of both average performance and performance variability, and to reduce water abstraction, agrochemical pollution and C emission below sustainable thresholds.