Optimal Rainwater Harvesting and Irrigation: Monitoring the Soil Water Balance in the Duke Smart Home Garden

 Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Duke Smart Home -  Noon

Jun Yin, PhD

Postdoctoral Associate, Duke University

Abstract:

Duke Smart Home is a live-in research laboratory operated by the Pratt School of Engineering with support from industry partners. To promote water use efficiency and conservation, the home features eight cisterns that collect rainwater, including two 1200 gallon outdoor cisterns store water for the garden irrigation system. Our wireless monitoring system, located in the Smart Home backyard, continuously tracks soil and atmospheric states, such as temperature, humidity/moisture, carbon dioxide concentration, solar and terrestrial radiation, wind speed, cistern water depth, and rainfall depth. Using this wireless system, we monitor the water balance in the Smart Home garden to quantify the efficiency of the smart irrigation system and to develop innovative strategies for rainwater collection system design and management. In this talk, we will briefly introduce the smart irrigation system at Duke Smart Home. We will explain in detail how we setup the tower, sensors, and wireless communication device. An on-site demo will show how to download data using cable or internet. We will also discuss some data obtained from the measurements and their use in ecohydrological models for sustainable use of soil and water resources

Biographical Sketch: