Smart Irrigation System
Transforming Devonport's Irrigation System with IoT Technology

BACKGROUND
​​Green spaces are essential to fostering the well-being of residents and enhancing the experiences of visitors in any community. Parks, ovals and other green spaces offer recreational opportunities, improve mental health, and promote environmental sustainability. For Devonport City Council, maintaining the vibrancy and usability of the green spaces across their city is particularly crucial, as they play a central role in the city’s public life and tourism appeal.
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The council approached Indicium Dynamics with a need to improve the efficiency of its existing irrigation system.
Historically, the irrigation of sports grounds and green spaces occurred on an isolated control system with fixed timing schedules. This method failed to account for real-time environmental factors such as rainfall, soil moisture, or temperature, leading to issues like overwatering, underwatering, inefficient water use, high water costs, and potential damage to green spaces. Additionally, the existing hardware required manual programming, necessitating annual site visits to reprogram the devices and change batteries, further increasing operational challenges and costs.
The Council sought an accurate, low-maintenance solution to reduce water consumption costs and ensure these green spaces remained vibrant and usable for visitors. They sought to use IoT as the means to access real-time water use information and improve the remote control of irrigation practices across the city.​​

SOLUTION REQUIREMENTS
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Real-time information about weather conditions and soil moisture levels

Automation of irrigation schedules based on real-time environmental data

Collection of water usage data for reporting purposes, identifying patterns and usage compared to goals
SOLUTION
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To address the needs and challenges experienced by Devonport City Council, Indicium designed a solution to overhaul existing irrigation practices across 10 parks and sports grounds in the Devonport municipality. The solution utilised different IoT technologies, including a weather station, soil moisture probes, and IoT controllers that connected to existing irrigation devices already in the field.
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The devices were connected to Indicium’s LoRaWAN network in Devonport City, where the INDICIUM DataBus collects and visualises data from soil moisture sensors and the weather station. The system analyses this data to calculate soil moisture deficits, and when thresholds are reached, it automatically sends control signals to irrigation controllers. These controllers adjust watering based on real-time environmental conditions using an IF-THEN command system, ensuring optimal irrigation efficiency and resource use.​

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SOLUTION BENEFITS
The solution has the potential to reduce water wastage significantly by using real-time data to optimise irrigation. Integration of multiple data sources will ensure that irrigation occurs when needed, as opposed to being on a set schedule that does not take into account rain levels or retained moisture levels in the soil.
POTENTIAL FOR WATER CONSERVATION
The INDICIUM DataBus offers a unified view of all irrigation sites, ensuring precise control across multiple locations.
CENTRALISED MONITORING
The solution will help the council to conserve natural resources, which will support optimal allocation of water resources across the city.
ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
Smart irrigation practices will lower expenses by conserving water, and reducing the labour costs involved with the maintenance of the system. The long battery life of the devices chosen means that council workers will no longer need to annually maintain the irrigation system by replacing batteries and undertaking maintenance of the system.
COST SAVINGS
Enhances public space usability and appearance, ensuring spaces are able to be used and enjoyed when needed.
COMMUNITY SATISFACTION
A holistic overview of environmental conditions will support irrigation practices that ensure that grassed areas are irrigated optimally, supporting healthy plants and turf.
IMPROVED PLANT HEALTH