Defining Temporally Variable Urban Turfgrass Irrigation Zones with ECa or Thermal IR Drone Data

Keywords: Soil Water, Turfgrass, Irrigation, Drought, Zones
Abstract Type: Poster Abstract

Abstract

Mountain west is experiencing a “mega drought”. In Utah, most residences, and institutions have irrigated turfgrass. With increased urbanization, turfgrass is now the dominant irrigated crop in the USA (Milesi et al., 2005). Turfgrass has several advantages in urban areas such as cooling, carbon fixation, reduction in fire risk etc. but it uses a large amount of the scarce fresh water supply. The EPA has estimated that about 50% of turfgrass irrigation water is wasted by temporal and spatial misapplications, with the latter accounting for larger proportions of waste. Developing spatial zones to be used with new “valve in head” sprinkler technology is key to addressing spatial mis-applications. Several agricultural variable rate irrigation (VRI) studies have suggested that temporally variable irrigation zones are needed because zones do not stay static once variable management practices are used. This issue has been addressed with dense sensor networks and others have attached IR thermometers to irrigation central pivots. How can this issue be addressed for urban turfgrass where there is no crop being sold that can offset the price of frequent sensing needs? Data from several dense field surveys, ECa surveys and thermal IR data from drone flights in Summer 2022 are used to investigate whether ECa data or thermal IR data are more useful for determining temporally varying zones for urban turfgrass. The relative errors associated with both approaches will be assessed. The advantages and disadvantages of these two approaches in the urban setting are also evaluated.