Transforming Urban Green Spaces with Smart, Sustainable Irrigation Solutions
At Natural Solutions, we build decision-making support tools designed to enhance the sustainability of urban landscaping. Discover integrated irrigation management for better adaptation of green infrastructures to city challenges.
As cities face increasing environmental pressures, it is crucial to implement smart irrigation systems that conserve water while maintaining healthy urban greenery. To make nature flourish in your city, Ecoteka provides irrigation insights and know-how with the collaboration of Urbasense. This partnership leverages cutting-edge technology and agronomic expertise to create resilient urban green infrastructures.
The project began with a collaborative win between Natural Solutions and Urbasense at a data challenge in Dijon, France. Natural Solutions focused on the mapping and enhancement of the tree inventory in the Dijon metropolitan area. Through an API gateway, a connection and data retrieval tool between the Urbasense platform and Ecoteka was developed. This gateway, created in open source, ensures seamless data integration and real-time monitoring of urban green spaces, facilitating proactive and informed decision-making for urban planners and landscapers.
Understanding Root System
for Sustainable Irrigation Practices
Watering seems easy: putting water at the foot of a plant. It’s actually more complex than that. Studying plants’ root systems is essential to know how to water a plant correctly. The aim of smart watering is to encourage plants to develop their root system with a specific watering method. You need to favor cycles of drying up and then watering the soil again, while always maintaining water balance for the plants. This will trigger a physiological reaction in the plant and encourage it to develop its root system. Deep root systems are particularly important for urban trees, which often face stress from compacted soils, limited space and pollution.
We use tensiometric probes that measure a specific kind of pressure required to extract water from the soil. This data is crucial for agronomists and urban landscapers. The measures collected travel to Urbasense’s servers through the IoT network (Internet of Things). Then, at Urbasense, we prepare and send you a weekly watering bulletin to regulate the irrigation process. This bulletin provides actionable insights, ensuring that plants receive the right amount of water at the right time, optimizing their growth and resilience.
A probe is set up at the foot of the tree and other probes are set further away to monitor the progression of the plant’s root development. The probe indicates whether the soil is sufficiently humid for the roots to draw water, which is useful for determining if the soil is thirsty. We use a proxy, the soil around the roots, to avoid measuring the root hydration directly, as this would damage the root system. The soil acts as a gradient, providing a comprehensive view of soil moisture levels at different depths.
IoT-Based Smart Irrigation System
Strengthens Green Infrastructure Resilience
Urban trees are regularly injured, so we aim to develop a deep root system that strengthens them and makes them more resilient. Few old trees are found in cities, even though the ecosystem services provided by trees develop with their age, or more precisely their size (a canopy of 2 meters in diameter). Until the next urban redevelopment, as streets are generally redone every 50 to 60 years, and the trees are then cut down, it is vital to support their growth with effective irrigation techniques.
We also work on sports grounds where we manage to reduce water consumption by half and significantly develop the lawn’s root system. Monitoring of city planters also allows rationalization of watering. This system allows for rooting control by educating trees to city life, thanks to a deeper anchoring of their root systems. This approach not only conserves water but also enhances the durability and health of urban trees and plants.
We are also able to monitor the quality of watering and verify that it has taken place: watering the right amount of water at the right place and at the right time thanks to these measurements. Plants export water to the atmosphere, a phenomenon we measure with the tensiometric probes, allowing for appropriate watering decisions. By leveraging this technology, cities can foster healthier, more resilient urban greenery while conserving valuable water resources.
Sustainable watering, powered by Urbasense and integrated with Ecoteka, represents a transformative approach to urban green management. By leveraging advanced technology and ecological insights, cities can foster healthier, more resilient urban vegetation while conserving valuable water resources. Embracing these innovations ensures urban greenery thrives amidst the challenges of modern cities, enhancing quality of life and sustainability for generations to come.
