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Home > Featured Stories > Engaging Society > September 2007 > Intelligent IrrigationIntelligent Irrigation
TIMS can help you determine how much water your lawn really needs.
By Dave Pond, Web Communication
With water restrictions and drought conditions wreaking havoc on lawns across North Carolina, a free, Web-based program unveiled in early September can help you get the most out of your sprinkler system - and it may just help put the green back in your grass as well.
Through a cooperative effort between the NC State University Department of Crop Science and the State Climate Office of North Carolina, an internet-based decision-aide called the Turf Irrigation Management System (TIMS) has been developed and is now available to the citizens of North Carolina.
After just a few weeks of use, lawn owners will be able to save at least 25% of normal irrigation, said Dr. Charles Peacock, the lead scientist on the project and a professor of Turfgrass Science at NC State.
"We think that's a realistic figure," he said. "The tendency of people is to soak things down really well, and then wait until it hasn't rained in a while and soak it down again, without really knowing what's going on from a watching-the-grass perspective, or what kind of capacity the soil has.
"The grasses are a lot more resilient than what they give them credit for."
Peacock and Dr. Dan Bowman worked closely with database programmers, designers and climatologists for more than two years on the project, focusing on educating homeowners on how to best irrigate within the guidelines that municipalities have put in place to determine the exact amount needed to keep their lawns at their healthiest.
"People need two things - they need to know how much water to put out and they need a way to truly monitor what they are doing," Peacock said. "So, we began to put some ideas together to see what we could do not only from an education viewpoint, but from an assistance viewpoint to deliver something to them that would help."
After filling out a brief registration, the system guides lawn owners through a series of questions about the type of grass, soil and irrigation system currently in use.
"We've tried to make it very easy to use," Peacock said. "All you have to do is click boxes and type your address in - it couldn't be simpler."
Lawn owners are then prompted to place containers throughout the irrigation area to measure the amount of water they're using over timed intervals. Once this data has been entered and the lawn owner's account established, TIMS calculates the amount of irrigation the lawn owner needs and keeps track of when and how much water is actually used.
"It doesn't entirely tell you what to do, but the intent is that it gives you the information to make a more intelligent decision about what you are doing from an irrigation viewpoint," Peacock said.
Based on the lawn owner's address, climate information is then retrieved from the closest weather station, and TIMS calculates the irrigation needed by the lawn owner's turf, based on recent weather conditions including precipitation and evaporation.
"The website is set up that so we don't ever tell people to water to the maximum, so that in case they get a shower or a thunderstorm, they'll get a benefit from it," Peacock said. "If you get a shower and the soil is already filled up, that water is just going to run off and not soak in."
That's a primary reason that day-specific watering restrictions alone have done little to conserve water throughout the region - many homeowners continue to water constantly during whatever window of opportunity is allowed.
"That's one of the arguments we've had all along - restrictions like that just don't work," he said. "In fact, the city of Raleigh finally recognized that they haven't saved a significant amount of water - even going to the one-day-per-week schedule, water use is down just 13 percent.
"There are some people who tend to just turn on their irrigation system and let it run, or water twice in a day because they know they can't water the next day," Peacock said. "You can't just look at it like that and make a decision that the turf needs a certain volume of water - that's why our program is set up like it is."
With a number of local municipalities debating tiered pricing for water usage, this environmentally and fiscally responsible irrigation tool is attracting some serious attention. During its first several weeks of availability, an average of 100 people per day have signed up online.
"There's a lot of publicity out there about the program right now to encourage people to take a look at it," Peacock said. "As we get into fall, with temperatures moderating the way they do, people are going to back off from water use, but we anticipate a big push in the spring as it starts to heat up again."