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Agriculture/
Specialized fields/
Irrigation districts and canalsIrrigation districts, sharing water on evidence.
An irrigation district shares a river or reservoir among many farms through canals, gates and offtakes. Level and flow sensors along the canals, meters at each delivery, water quality and weather stations report to one record, so the district delivers what was ordered and accounts for every share.
Plan a deploymentHow it worksStation Builder- Industry
- Agriculture
- Measurements
- 5
- Sources cited
- 5
Agriculture · Irrigation districts and canals
The tail end of the canal
Water released at the headworks takes hours to reach the tail of a canal, and farms at the end often get less than their share. Without levels and flows along the way, operators guess, losses hide and disputes follow. Measuring the canal from head to tail lets the district deliver fairly and prove it.
What is measured
Levels, deliveries, quality and weather
Level sensors watch the canal upstream of gates, at offtakes and at the tail; meters or measuring structures count each delivery; sondes at the headworks read salinity, temperature and turbidity. District weather stations give daily crop water use, so allocations can follow demand.
- Instruments
- Canal level · Offtake meters · Water-quality sondes · District weather
The base node
A district node that keeps the account
Canal points sign their readings and send them through gateways to the district node. The node follows the wave of water along each canal, compares deliveries with orders, raises overtopping and low-level alarms, and keeps the water account as the readings arrive.
Radio and links
LoRaWAN along the canals, microwave home
Points along many kilometres of canal reach a few gateways on towers over LoRaWAN, at very low power. Gateways and gate sites link to the district office over microwave, independent of public networks, and remote offtakes beyond the gateways use cellular where it exists.
- Links
- LoRaWAN · Microwave · Public cellular
How it works
From an offtake to a farmer’s bill
An offtake meter’s reading is signed by its endpoint and sent over LoRaWAN to a gateway on a tower, then over microwave to the district node. The node totals it against the farmer’s order, and the delivery reaches billing and the water account with the reading behind it.
From order to operation · Order
Scope the canals and the water account
The scope reads the canal network, the gates and offtakes, the ordering rules, the abstraction licence and the water account the district must keep. Nexus Observatory Inc. returns the point plan by reach, the radio design, the integration with ordering and billing and a price per point and per service.
Plan a deploymentFrom order to operation · Survey
Walk the canals from head to tail
Crews walk the canals with the district’s operators to find stable sections upstream of gates, offtakes that need meters, and tower sites for gateways with line of sight along the canals. They record access in the irrigation season and in the wet season, and mark points clear of maintenance machinery.
From order to operation · Permits
Canal banks, towers and licences
Points on canal banks and structures need the district’s consent, and towers follow planning rules. The measurement plan for the abstraction licence is agreed with the basin authority, and farmers are told how their deliveries are metered. Every agreement is kept with the canal’s record.
From order to operation · Build
Build points for open canals
Level and flow sensors, endpoints, gateways, gate nodes and microwave radios are built, tested together and enrolled with their identities. Each point is configured for its reach, its alarm levels and its reporting rate, and labelled with the canal and offtake it serves.
Open the Station BuilderFrom order to operation · Install
Install in the dry season
Installation is planned while canals are empty or low. Level sensors are mounted on stable sections and levelled to benchmarks, meters fitted at offtakes, water quality sondes placed at the headworks, gateways and microwave dishes raised on towers. Every point is photographed for the record.
From order to operation · Commission
Commission with the first water
Each device proves its identity and joins the network. Levels are checked against staff gauges, flows against current-meter measurements, sondes against reference solutions. Microwave links are aligned and the budget checked, and overtopping alarms are tested to the operators on duty.
From order to operation · Operate
Deliver what was ordered
Operators see levels and flows along every canal and set gates to deliver each order, with the tail end in view. Deliveries are totalled per farm and per order, losses show between head and tail, and the water account follows from the same record, ready for farmers and the authority.
From order to operation · Maintain
Keep the measurements honest
Flow measurements are repeated on schedule and after canal works, sensors are cleaned of weed and silt, meters checked, and batteries changed on plan. Every change is recorded against the point, so the water account stays trustworthy from one season to the next.
Book field servicesData products
For operators, farmers and the basin
Operators receive levels and flows along every canal; farmers receive their deliveries per order; district boards and basin authorities receive the water account and losses; agronomists receive water quality at the headworks; planners receive daily crop water use. Each product carries its calibration.
See the data productsEvidence
A water account anyone can check
Every reading, flow measurement, alarm and delivery is signed and kept. Canal operation follows FAO guidance on modern water control, crop water use follows the FAO method, abstraction is reported as the river basin rules require, and series are exchanged through open water data standards.
- Drawn against
- FAO Water Reports 19 · FAO-56 · Directive 2000/60/EC · OGC WaterML
What you get
Hydrometeorological and flood observing networks
Stream gauges, rain gauges, weather radar and automatic weather stations built to WMO practice, reporting through WIS 2.0 where the agency requires it. Delivered as hardware + software, managed service and build-operate-transfer, for national meteorological and hydrological services, river-basin agencies, utilities.
Talk to salesNext step
Plan irrigation districts and canals with us
Tell us the site, the measurements and the rules it answers to. We reply with a survey proposal, a design and a scope for irrigation districts and canals. An engineer replies with a survey proposal and a scope, and the plan grows from one site to the network you need, at your pace.
Plan a deploymentOpen the Station BuilderOpen the Studio
01The place and its hazards
Where it runs, and what can go wrong.
Operating contextIrrigation districts and water user associations run canals, gates and offtakes that deliver water to farms on order or on rotation. Abstraction is licensed, water must be shared fairly and accounted for, and quality matters for crops and soils. Modern canal operation depends on knowing levels and flows along the system as they change.
Hazards
- Unequal deliveries between head and tail of a canal
- Canal overtopping or breaches
- Water losses to seepage and unauthorised use
- Salinity and poor water quality reaching crops
- Shortage years with tight allocations
02What must be measured
What, where, how often, and under which rules.
Each measurement names where it is taken, how often, and the public standard or regulation behind it. Numbers in the sources column open the cited source below.
| Measurement | Where | Cadence | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canal levels | Upstream of gates, at offtakes and at canal tails | Continuous, reported at short intervals | 1 |
| Delivered volume | Meters or measuring structures at each farm offtake | Continuous, totalled per order | 1 |
| Diversion and inflow | The headworks and main canal | Continuous | 2 |
| Water quality | Headworks and representative canals: salinity, temperature and turbidity | Continuous | 3 |
| District weather and crop water use | Representative stations across the command area | Continuous, crop water use daily | 45 |
03The observation stack
From one base unit to a network.
The same blocks at every scale: instruments and a base node, a site with its radio, a fleet run as one, and a network federated on the open protocol.
- 01
Base unit
A canal point: a level or flow sensor on a LoRaWAN endpoint that signs every value, or a node at a gate with its controller.
Build a station → - 02
Site
A canal reach: points from head to tail, a gateway on a tower and a microwave link to the district office.
Plan a site → - 03
Fleet
Every canal of the district run as one fleet, with one calibration process and one water account.
Managed offers → - 04
Network
Districts, basin authorities and farmers exchange deliveries, allocations and observations through open standards.
The open protocol →
- 01Flow meter
- 02Water level gauge
- 03Compact weather station
- 04Water quality sonde
- 05LPWAN endpoint
- 06LoRaWAN gateway
- 07Edge node (Wedge)
- 08Point-to-point microwave
- 09Solar array
- 10Lattice tower
Radio and links
LoRaWAN
Points along many kilometres of canal reach a few gateways on towers, at very low power.
Radio and links
Point-to-point microwave
Gateways and gate sites link to the district office over microwave, independent of public networks.
Radio and links
Public cellular
Remote offtakes beyond the gateways report over cellular where coverage exists.
Edge computeThe district node follows levels from head to tail, compares deliveries with orders, raises overtopping and low-level alarms and computes crop water use from the district stations each day.
PowerCanal points run on batteries or small solar panels; gate sites and gateways run on solar with batteries sized for the season.
04How it works
From the instrument to the product.
One observation’s path, tier by tier, with the interface on every link and a bill of materials below; then how the one node grows to a site, a fleet and federated networks.
Irrigation districts and canals: data path
– of 08
01 Instruments Measurement with sensor identity andcalibration 02 Field radio 03 Gateway 04 Node – Wrap in an observation envelope with timequality– Measure quality and uncertainty, attachquality flags– Buffer locally (store-and-forward when thelink drops) 05 Backhaul Commit with transactional outbox andpublish, delivered at least once 06 Site Consumer inbox deduplicates and applieseach record once into governed data 07 Data store Governed product through API, map orexport, correction-aware 08 Products OGC WaterML 2.0OGC SensorThings APIModbus 09 Power and structure Supplies 12 V DC, 24 V DC, 48 V DC to thefield equipment 01 Flow meter SDI-12 · RS-485 · Ethernet 02 Water level gauge SDI-12 · RS-485 · Ethernet 03 Compact weather station SDI-12 · RS-485 · Ethernet 04 Water quality sonde SDI-12 · RS-485 · Ethernet 05 LPWAN endpoint Analogue I/O · SDI-12 · RS-485 06 LoRaWAN gateway Ethernet · RF · GNSS antenna 07 Edge node (Wedge) Ethernet · Fibre · USB · RS-485 ·BMC 08 Point-to-point microwave Ethernet · Fibre Site MQTT 5 with Sparkplug B Governed data store Versioned, correction-aware Canal levels and flows fromhead to tail Deliveries per farm and perorder Water account and losses Water quality at theheadworks Daily crop water use 09 Solar array RS-485 10 Lattice tower SDI-12 SDI-12 SDI-12 SDI-12 LoRaWAN Ethernet Ethernet Microwave link| Item | Equipment | Data ports | Protocols | Power in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Flow meterOpen-channel or pipe flow meter (Doppler, ultrasonic, electromagnetic). | SDI-12RS-485Ethernet | SDI-12, Modbus, MQTT 5, OGC SensorThings API | 12 V DC |
| 02 | Water level gaugeRadar, pressure or float gauge for river, lake, reservoir or tide level. | SDI-12RS-485Ethernet | SDI-12, Modbus, MQTT 5, OGC SensorThings API | 12 V DC |
| 03 | Compact weather stationAll-in-one or compact station for temperature, humidity, pressure, wind and rain at a site. | SDI-12RS-485Ethernet | SDI-12, Modbus, MQTT 5, OGC SensorThings API | 12 V DC |
| 04 | Water quality sondeMulti-parameter sonde for temperature, conductivity, pH, dissolved oxygen and turbidity. | SDI-12RS-485Ethernet | SDI-12, Modbus, MQTT 5, OGC SensorThings API | 12 V DC |
| 05 | LPWAN endpointBattery-powered endpoint on LoRaWAN, NB-IoT or LTE-M that carries one or more sensors. | Analogue I/OSDI-12RS-485 | LoRaWAN, OMA LwM2M, CoAP | Internal battery, Energy harvesting |
| 06 | LoRaWAN gatewayMulti-channel LoRaWAN gateway that forwards uplinks to a network server and schedules downlinks within duty limits. | EthernetRFGNSS antenna | LoRaWAN, MQTT 5 | PoE, 12 V DC |
| 07 | Edge node (Wedge)Rugged edge node that boots from signed media, attests itself and establishes a site cell from little or no infrastructure. | EthernetFibreUSBRS-485BMC | MQTT 5, DMTF Redfish, IEEE 1588 PTP, NTP with NTS, OPC UA | 12 V DC, 24 V DC, 48 V DC, AC mains |
| 08 | Point-to-point microwaveLicensed or licence-exempt point-to-point radio link between two sites with line-of-sight. | EthernetFibre | IEEE 1588 PTP | PoE, 48 V DC |
| 09 | Solar arrayPV modules with charge controller sized to the site’s load and climate. | RS-485 | Modbus | — |
| 10 | Lattice towerSelf-supporting or guyed lattice tower for macro radios, links and instruments. | — | — | — |
How it scales
01 Instruments Arbitrary qualified sensors and instruments whosemeasurements are ingested with calibration, units,geometry, time, custody and uncertainty. ×n 02 Node The minimum useful deployable unit: server, ruggedappliance, radio node, sensor gateway, satelliteterminal, AI, scientific, vehicle or virtual node. Node Node agent 03 Site The minimum independently operable localgovernance and failure domain: one or more nodesplus local network, identity, policy, evidence,storage, products and operator surfaces.SITE
Node Node Node ×n 04 Cluster An optional scale or specialisation domain forscheduling, shared storage, accelerators or datalocality.CLUSTER
×n 05 Fleet Coordinates plans, acknowledgements,convergence evidence, update campaigns andcorrection propagation across nodes and sites.FLEET
Fleet controller ×n 06 Federation An exchange of products, capabilities, events orwork across approved, independently administeredtrust domains, using explicit trust, policy,data-locality, version and correction contracts.TRUST DOMAIN
TRUST DOMAIN
TRUST DOMAIN
×n Verifier Applications Data in the field Telemetry Control Data upstream Control Data upstream Control Exchange Evidence Events Exchange- Data in the field
- MQTT 5 with Sparkplug B; connectors for LoRaWAN, OPC UA and instrument buses.
- Telemetry
- OpenTelemetry OTLP.
- Control
- TLS 1.3 with mutual authentication; protobuf messages over gRPC or HTTP/2.
- Data upstream
- At-least-once publication with repeat-safe keys over the control channel or NATS JetStream; QUIC MAY be used on lossy links.
- Evidence
- DSSE-signed in-toto statements; SLSA provenance; SCITT transparency receipts.
- Events
- Event envelopes mapped to CloudEvents 1.0; channels described in AsyncAPI 3.
- Exchange
- OpenAPI 3.1; the OGC API family; SensorThings; STAC; WIS 2.0.
05From order to operation
Every step, from the first call to a running site.
The same crew and the same record carry the work from scope to maintenance.
- 01 Order
Scope the canals and the water account
The scope reads the canal network, the gates and offtakes, the ordering rules, the abstraction licence and the water account the district must keep. Nexus Observatory Inc. returns the point plan by reach, the radio design, the integration with ordering and billing and a price per point and per service. 12
- 02 Survey
Walk the canals from head to tail
Crews walk the canals with the district’s operators to find stable sections upstream of gates, offtakes that need meters, and tower sites for gateways with line of sight along the canals. They record access in the irrigation season and in the wet season, and mark points clear of maintenance machinery.
- 03 Permits
Canal banks, towers and licences
Points on canal banks and structures need the district’s consent, and towers follow planning rules. The measurement plan for the abstraction licence is agreed with the basin authority, and farmers are told how their deliveries are metered. Every agreement is kept with the canal’s record. 2
- 04 Build
Build points for open canals
Level and flow sensors, endpoints, gateways, gate nodes and microwave radios are built, tested together and enrolled with their identities. Each point is configured for its reach, its alarm levels and its reporting rate, and labelled with the canal and offtake it serves.
- 05 Install
Install in the dry season
Installation is planned while canals are empty or low. Level sensors are mounted on stable sections and levelled to benchmarks, meters fitted at offtakes, water quality sondes placed at the headworks, gateways and microwave dishes raised on towers. Every point is photographed for the record.
- 06 Commission
Commission with the first water
Each device proves its identity and joins the network. Levels are checked against staff gauges, flows against current-meter measurements, sondes against reference solutions. Microwave links are aligned and the budget checked, and overtopping alarms are tested to the operators on duty. 1
- 07 Operate
Deliver what was ordered
Operators see levels and flows along every canal and set gates to deliver each order, with the tail end in view. Deliveries are totalled per farm and per order, losses show between head and tail, and the water account follows from the same record, ready for farmers and the authority.
- 08 Maintain
Keep the measurements honest
Flow measurements are repeated on schedule and after canal works, sensors are cleaned of weed and silt, meters checked, and batteries changed on plan. Every change is recorded against the point, so the water account stays trustworthy from one season to the next.
06Data products and integration
What it delivers, to whom, and into which systems.
Data products
- Canal levels and flows from head to tailDistrict operators
- Deliveries per farm and per orderFarmers and the district office
- Water account and lossesDistrict boards and basin authorities
- Water quality at the headworksAgronomists and farmers
- Daily crop water useFarmers and planners
Integration
- Ordering and billingDeliveries per order are sent to the district’s ordering and billing system.
- Gate controlGate controllers are read over Modbus; control stays with the operator and the controller.
- Basin authorityDiversions and returns are reported through OGC WaterML and SensorThings.
Exchanged through OGC WaterML 2.0, OGC SensorThings API, Modbus.
07Questions buyers ask
Before you scope it.
Can farmers see their own deliveries?
Yes. Each farm sees its orders and deliveries; the district decides what else is shared.
Do we have to replace our gates?
No. Existing gates are read where their controllers allow, and points are added where needed.
How are flows measured?
At meters or measuring structures, checked by current-meter measurements on schedule.
What happens when a link fails?
Points buffer their data and send it when the link returns; alarms use a second path where one exists.
08Resources
The sources behind this page.
Public standards, regulations and guidance, cited where they apply. Each applies only where its jurisdiction or scope does.
- 1Modern water control and management practices in irrigation (FAO Water Reports 19)Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations · 1999
- 2Directive 2000/60/EC: the Water Framework DirectiveEuropean Union · 2000
- 3Water quality for agriculture (FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper 29 Rev. 1)Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations · 1985
- 4Crop evapotranspiration: guidelines for computing crop water requirements (FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper 56)Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations · 1998
- 5Guide to Agricultural Meteorological Practices (WMO-No. 134)World Meteorological Organization · 2010
09Related
Use cases and solutions.
Use caseLow-cost stream gauge network
Radar or pressure level sensors with low-power radio and solar power, as a cheaper tier beside a national gauge network.The full use case →SolutionHydrometeorological and flood observing networks
Stream gauges, rain gauges, weather radar and automatic weather stations built to WMO practice, reporting through WIS 2.0 where the agency requires it.Solutions for agriculture →SolutionAgricultural field observatories
Soil moisture profiles, micro-weather and evapotranspiration with irrigation thresholds per field.Solutions for agriculture →10Agriculture: specialized fields
Other fields of this industry.
Specialized fieldRow crops and grain
Soil moisture and temperature by zone, field weather for spraying and disease, evapotranspiration for irrigation and satellite crop vigour, on LoRaWAN across the farm and cellular back to the office.The full field →Specialized fieldOrchards and vineyards
Frost watch at dawn, leaf wetness and disease risk, soil water for deficit irrigation and canopy cameras, on LoRaWAN across the blocks with alerts that wake the grower in time.The full field →Specialized fieldLivestock and dairy
Barn air and ammonia, heat stress, water and feed, animal welfare cameras and pasture water points, on a farm network that keeps the herd’s record and the emissions record in one place.The full field →Specialized fieldGreenhouses and controlled environment
Climate, carbon dioxide, substrate water and nutrient dosing, energy and outside weather for greenhouses and vertical farms, on the site network beside the climate computer, never in its way.The full field →Specialized fieldForestry and plantations
Fire watch from towers, forest weather and fire danger, sound for illegal logging, growth and carbon plots and satellite change, on LoRaWAN, microwave and satellite across the estate.The full field →Specialized fieldAquaculture
Dissolved oxygen, temperature and salinity at the pens, met-ocean conditions, feeding cameras and harmful algae watch for fish and shellfish farms, on cellular and satellite from the water.The full field →Specialized fieldRangeland and pastoralism
Rain, pasture growth, water points and herd movement across open range, with satellite forage maps and drought early warning, on LoRaWAN and satellite where no network reaches.The full field →Bring us the site.
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