MVP stage
The main components of IShWAR are: (i) estimating real-time values of water demand and supply based on data from ground sensors, satellites, weather models and farmers, (ii) forecasting water demand using a crop model and forecasted weather data, (iii) visually presenting demand and supply information to water management engineers, (iv) performing hydraulic simulations and suggesting decision options to the engineers, and (v) communicating decisions to farmers and getting their feedbacks.
We have developed and independently tested these components or their parts in our previous studies (PANI). The methodology for installing ground sensors, estimating crop water demand, crowdsourcing farm data and communicating irrigation advisories to farmers was tested in a pilot study near Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. In this study, data on agricultural practices and soil were collected from 150 farms. The technology could save 30 Million litres of groundwater from over extraction in 6 months.
World bank has recently published a report (World Bank 2020) proposing seven global products and applications as strategic and beneficial opportunities for the international community to develop. It recommended the PANI work stating that “This irrigation advisory system in India will be successful and will go forward one way or another, as a potentially disruptive technology.” It further adds that “the benefit of the advisories will increase if canal discharge scheduling is also based on real-time information of irrigation water requirements, rather than outdated records of cropping patterns.”
NASA has also appreciated the PANI work and published an article on their website on the eve of Earth day (NASA 2020). They have also converted the work into education lessons to school children
Next, using meteorological and soil moisture data from ground stations and forecasted weather parameters from downscaled numerical weather prediction models, we provided advisories to farmers through SMS (Hossain et al., 2020; Agrilinks team, 2020). The methodology for measuring water level in canals & wells was developed and tested in a critical zone observatory of the Ganga Basin (Gupta et al., 2019). In that study, we also developed & perfected the methodology for involving citizen scientists in collecting weather data.

● World Bank (2020) New avenues for remote sensing applications for water management http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/810581561961939655/pdf/New-Avenues-for-Remote-Sensing-Applications-for-Water-Management-A-Range-of-Applications-and-the-Lessons-Learned-from-Implementation.pdf
● NASA (2020) https://gpm.nasa.gov/articles/satellite-data-empowers-farmers-india
● Gupta, S., S. H. Karumanchi, S. K. Dash, S. Adla, S. Tripathi, R. Sinha, D. Paul, and I. S. Sen (2019), Monitoring ecosystem health in India’s food basket, Eos, 100, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EO117683.
● Hossain, F., Karumanchi, S. H., Goyal, S., Ahmad, S., Lohani, B., Balaji N, and Tripathi S. (2020). Towards affordable and sustainable water smart irrigation services. Water Resources, IMPACT, 22(1), 28-29. https://online.flippingbook.com/view/219042/28/
● Agrilink Team (2020). Improving Irrigation Services for Marginal Farmers in India, https://www.agrilinks.org/post/improving-irrigation-services-marginal-farmers-india.