By Alex Doron, Maariv Business, Published: October 29th 2008

The following list is both impressive and amazing: sneakers, UV-resistant sunglasses, the insulin pump, soft foam in bed mattresses, heat insulation gloves, optometric equipment, prosthetic limbs, smoke detectors, wrist watches with a distress transmitter, solar panes in the yard and on the roof, and even Teflon.

All of these and many more are inventions, products and technologies that were initially developed for NASA for space travel to the moon and other planets, and only afterwards adapted to daily purposes on our planet.

An American sensor will soon be added to this distinguished list. This sensor presently operates continuously on the planet Mars. Soon it will be tested on earth, for the first time ever, in a pilot program in Israeli cities. Currently this sensor – fork-shaped – is part of the robotic arm that the landing craft "Phoenix"" is equipped with. Thanks to this sensor, NASA was able to ceremoniously announce recently that traces of frozen water, ice, were found on the red, arid, frozen planet.

In Israel, the "sensor from Mars" has been given another task: monitoring the quantity of water for irrigating public gardens, in the aim of conserving both water and irrigation costs.
The experimental project will be implemented by Netafim. The equipment it will operate will supply detailed information on the water quantities the public gardens in Israel consume, where the pilot program is being done. According to the experts, it will be possible to save up to 20% with sensing solutions – and possibly more – on annual water consumption in the park, without harming the growth of the plants, trees, lawns or flowers. All of them will receive sufficient water quantities, no more. They will continue to grow and blossom, providing all the usual colors – while preventing waste.

Netafim has incorporated the "sensor from Mars" – made by Decagon USA, in the multifaceted IrriWise monitoring system. The IrriWise system comprises various sensors to measure the soil moisture level (among them additional Decagon sensors), and is used mainly for agricultural crops. The sensor system tracks soil moisture conditions, the temperature in the crop's environs, and controls the irrigation and fertigation systems. This system normally optimizes everything essential for the plants: water and fertilizer quantities, the costs of which have soared over the last years.

"For example, if a farmer uses 1200 m3 water annually to irrigate various crops on an area of 10,000 m2 – the system's sensors dispersed around this area enable a water saving up to 20% or more. When the crop area is tens of hectares or more – the money saved is most significant", claims Yizhar Feldman, the IrriWise Product Manager in Netafim.

"Instead of giving the farmers subsidies on water", he continued, "this subsidy should be transferred to another direction: it should be used for control, monitoring and management systems. These systems will result in saving money, but an even more essential savings will be attained: conserving water use in Israel, during a period when the country is essentially drying out. This will be really significant – both to the economy and to the farmers."

The agricultural and industrial sectors, and not the domestic sector, are the largest water consumers in Israel: two-thirds of the annual amount in Israel is consumed by the farmers and the industrial factories. In 2006, for example, the water consumption of the domestic sector was 737 million m³ – only slightly more than a third of the total water consumption in Israel, as compared with 1.1 billion m³ consumed by the agriculture and industry sectors.

According to the Israeli parliament's research and information report from March 2008, the water consumption in Israel in 2007 was 1.4 billion m³ and the domestic consumption had increased by 4% as compared with 2006.  Agriculture is indeed the major water consumer; however, while there was an increase in the industrial water consumption compared with 2006, there was a decrease in the agricultural water consumption. According to Feldman, the reasons for the decrease in water consumption in agriculture are: government reductions in water allocations, which sometimes resulted in crops drying out, and the uprooting of fields and plantations; the fallow ("Shmita") year which had begun in 2007, and also the transition to increased usage of treated waste water, instead of fresh water.

In the same report it was also written that the fresh water consumption for the domestic sector is 766 million m³, while the agriculture sector consumes 565 million m³. Yet, the consumption of treated waste water for agriculture - brackish and fresh- is still 1.1 billion m³.

The basic system comprising various sensors for agronomic use – a computer controlled system, is equipped with wireless transmitters (transfer of signals by radio, RF or cellular communication) –  costs up to about 50,000 shekels. The return on the investment, thanks to the savings attained by the user – can be reached within one year, emphasizes Yizhar. Other advantages of the system: it identifies leaks in irrigation pipes in fields, pipe bursts and other damages. It also warns against the penetration of pollution into the water table, during fertigation. The system also transfers data to the control center on water quantities for irrigation and scheduling and points out inconsistencies compared to the irrigation programs prepared by the growers.

Feldman: "when we are talking about extensive growing areas owned by a single farmer, like in the USA, South America and Africa, where one farm can cover an area the size of the State of Israel, it will take an entire work day and a large number of workers to check around the entire farm area."

All the data can be received even from distant sites, for example, on an office PC or on a laptop computer carried by an expert agronomist or field services consultant, even if located in another country.

Returning to the project from Mars to the planet Earth: an example Municipality has 32 hectares (32,000,000 m2) irrigated landscaping in about 400 gardens – 17 large gardens (~4 hectare each) and 3 defined as large parks (over 10 hectares each), and currently pays about 5,500 Shekels for every 10,000 m2 irrigated. The city aims, in the framework of this experiment, to save 15% - 20% on the water irrigated compared to last year, which would total a savings of several million shekels annually.