Résumé
Unsustainable use of water resources and climate change will exacerbate the existing tensions surrounding resources, especially in the Mediterranean context. Despite investments in costly modern equipment, the performance of irrigated agriculture remains below expectations, notably because of the lack of available water data and the limited use of decision support tools. Although a variety of soil moisture sensors are available on the market, they are not widely used by the agricultural community because of their high cost and complexity. Access to information at an unprecedented level, via easily accessible low-cost and low-tech sensors, may be a major lever for improved identification of achievable gains in performance, and to guide actors toward efficient water management. To explore this hypothesis, an open source wireless soil moisture sensor, low-energy and economically and technically accessible, was developed. The tool was designed according to water users’ requirements and applied to a Tunisian irrigation scheme subject to major water use efficiency issues. The functioning of the wireless sensor network was tested on pilot plots over a growing season and compared with commercial sensors. A single parameter calibration can be performed in either the laboratory or the field. This low-cost sensor can be used for real-time irrigation monitoring and as a decision-making tool for water management.