Integration of Sensing Framework with a Decision Support System for Monitoring Water Quality in Agriculture

Abstract

Water is an essential element for every plant to survive, absorb nutrients, and perform photosynthesis and respiration. If water is polluted, plant growth can be truncated. The aim of this research is to develop a water quality monitoring system for agriculture purposes based on integration of sensing framework with a smart decision support method. This research consists of three stages: (1) the first stage: developing sensing framework which has four different water quality parameter sensors such as potential hydrogen (pH), electrical conductivity (EC), temperature, and oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), (2) the second stage: developing a hardware platform that uses an Arduino for sensor array of data processing and acquisition, and finally (3) the third stage: developing soft computing framework for decision support which uses python applications and fuzzy logic. The system was tested using water from many sources such as rivers, lakes, tap water, and filtered machine. Filtered water shows the highest value of pH as the filtered machine produces alkaline water, whereas tap water shows the highest value of temperature because the water is trapped in a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipe. Lake water depicts the highest value of EC due to the highest amount of total suspended solids (TSS) in the water, whereas river water shows the highest value of ORP due to the highest amount of dissolved oxygen. The system can display three ranges of water quality: not acceptable (NA), adequate (ADE) and highly acceptable (HACC) ranges from 0 to 9. Filtered water is in HACC condition (ranges 7–9) because all water quality parameters are in highly acceptable ranges. Tap water shows ADE condition (ranges 4–7) because one of the water quality parameters is in adequate ranges. River and lake water depict NA conditions (ranges 0–4) as one of the water quality parameters is in not acceptable ranges. The research outcome shows that filtered water is the most reliable water source for plants due to the absence of dissolved solids and contaminants in the water. Filtered water can improve pH and reduce the risk of plant disease. This research can help farmers to monitor the quality of irrigated water which eventually prevents crop disease, enhances crop growth, and increases crop yield.