New Grants Boost Flow of Water Research at Fresno State

  • 02/15/19

FRESNO, CA – Faculty and student water researchers at California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) will soon benefit from new grants providing $150,000 in funding to study innovative irrigation techniques, including artificial intelligence, low-flow filtration, and aerial systems imagery.

A total of four grants were awarded by the Irrigation Innovation Consortium, a collaborative research effort to accelerate the development and adoption of water and energy-efficient irrigation technologies and practices through public-private partnerships. Each grant includes partnerships with one or more of the start-up ventures from the Water, Energy and Technology (WET) Center at Fresno State. The projects will involve over 20 Fresno State students.

“The partnership with the WET Center was critical in helping identify industry projects of high importance,” says Dr. David Zoldoske, an executive committee member for the consortium and a project specialist for the Center for Irrigation Technology. “It is a natural partnership between Fresno State researchers and start-up companies to advance new technologies.”

The research grants include:
Artificial intelligence model for estimating crop water demand.
Faculty member Fayzul Pasha will lead work with the Center for Irrigation Technology and WET Center technology companies WiseConn, Dynamax, Irrometer and others. The partnership is designed to develop, validate, and test an artificial intelligence (AI) model using data from a fully instrumented olive orchard located at the University Agricultural Laboratory at Fresno State. A model will be developed to estimate crop water demand with higher accuracy.

“This project will develop an AI model to improve agricultural water and energy use efficiency using field, plant and weather data,” Pasha says.

Development of a low-pressure and low-flow water and energy efficient media filtration system. 
Led by senior researcher Dr. Kaomine Vang at the Center for Irrigation Technology and in partnership with Perigo LLC, a WET Center member, the project will research a new filtration technology that is more energy efficient and will require less water for back flushing.

Satellite and unmanned aerial systems imagery use to implement timely irrigation strategies. 
Led by researchers at Colorado State University and collaborating with Fresno State researchers Dr. Florence Cassel and Dr. Dave Goorahoo at the Center for Irrigation Technology, this project will assess the accuracy of using unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and satellites to determine a crop’s actual water use and soil water deficit.

This study will be conducted at two research facilities in Colorado, one in Weslaco, TX; one in Garden City, KS; and at commercial farms near Fresno. Remote sensing imagery will be collected daily from research sites to determine crop evapotranspiration and soil water deficits.

“We expect to develop novel guidelines to program the timing of irrigation using very high-resolution remote sensing data derived from satellite and UAS images,” Goorahoo says. “This, potentially, will have a great impact in water, soil and energy conservation in irrigated areas of the world.”

For more information on these new projects, contact the Center for Irrigation Technology at 559/278-2066.

Featured

  • ClassVR Wins Tech & Learning Best of Show at ISTELive 25

    Avantis Education recently announced that its flagship product, ClassVR, won the Tech & Learning Best of Show Award at ISTELive 25 in San Antonio, Texas, according to a news release. The program is designed to celebrate products that are “transforming education in schools around the world and that show the greatest promise for the industry,” and this is the fourth consecutive year that Avantis has claimed the award.

  • FAU Starts Construction on Holocaust and Jewish Studies Building

    Florida Atlantic University recently began construction on a new academic building for its campus in Boca Raton, Fla., according to university news. The Kurt and Marilyn Wallach Holocaust and Jewish Studies Building will stand two stories, measure in at 22,000 square feet, and play home to the university’s Holocaust education and Jewish studies programs.

  • Texas District Finishes Construction on New Middle School, Admin Building

    The Westwood Independent School District recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Westwood Middle School and Administration Building in Palestine, Texas, according to a news release. The campus covers 106,000 square feet and has the capacity for 650 students in grades 6–8, and it will also play home to the district’s staff and administration.

  • South Texas K–12 District Debuts Region’s First Electric Bus Fleet

    The Valley View Independent School District in Pharr, Texas, recently announced a partnership with Highland Electric Fleets to launch the district’s—and the region’s—first fleet of all-electric school buses, according to a news release.