The Region of Murcia, through the Murcian Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Research and Development (Imida), an agency under the Ministry of Water, Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries, has developed a data integration platform that allows optimizing the use and frequency of irrigation, determining the number of nutrients that plants need, and anticipating climate risks.

The ClimAlert project, Early Warning Service of Climate Risks related to water, is being developed by Imida in collaboration with the Region's Civil Protection Service and the participation of European partners from Spain, France, and Portugal. It consists of a platform open to citizens that integrates all the information transmitted by soil or water level humidity sensors in wells, new communication technologies, agrometeorological stations, and satellite information.

According to the director of Imida, Andrés Martínez, "this platform allows us to fight against drought and climate change as it facilitates decision-making by both public and private agents to manage water and soil erosion more efficiently."

Martinez said that "with all this information, farmers can anticipate weather conditions and calculate the water needs of crops continuously, which provides them with tools and information to improve decision-making to use water more efficiently from an environmental and economic point of view."

Uses
Technicians and farmers can access the two versions of the platform (a more advanced one aimed at emergency services and Regional Agricultural Offices, among others, and another more simplified version for common users). In them, they'll have access to the information provided by satellites, probes, and agro-meteorological stations, which they can use to make better decisions. The platform can be found at https://climalert.imida.es and one must register in it to access it.

Farmers can receive alerts on their mobile phones that inform them of the different agrometeorological situations that can affect their crops (wind, rains, drought, among others) in the geographical area that they have previously configured in the application.

Climate risks
In addition, ClimAlert is able to anticipate climate risks such as a DANA. Technicians, Civil Protection services, or 112 Emergency services can implement preventive measures in advance to avoid risks to the population in the event of torrential rains.

To this end, the Imida has carried out training courses in the agrarian and Civil Protection county offices so technicians know their applications, how to manage the software and it's different tools.

Source: carm.es