Improving the management of irrigation schemes is a priority in the Mediterranean countries of the EU to achieve the objectives of the Water Framework Directive 2000/60EC. In the case of schemes based on open-channel networks for water conveyance and delivery, a limitation to the management efficiency is the huge number of gates that need to be controlled and regulated manually to adapt the flow to the actual irrigation water demand. Automated and coordinated gate regulation of large irrigation schemes has been successfully implemented in some areas of the world (e.g., NSW, Australia), but it implies huge public investments that are often unavailable. Opposite to this top–down approach, the Lombardy region (the largest irrigated region in the EU) has explored an approach based on funding small projects, which should demonstrate the potential of innovation in irrigation practice and foster the expansion of the most effective measures. In this paper, we analyze the effects of one of these projects, consisting in the substitution of a manual gate, controlling the supply of irrigation to a 150 ha irrigation district, with an automated, remotely controlled gate. Nine years of daily flow measurements at the district inlet, provided by the irrigation consortium that manages the gate, were compared with the rigid flow regulation that was applied when the inlet gate was manually regulated and with the irrigation water requirements simulated with a distributed agro-hydrological model widely used in the region for irrigation accounting and planning. The results show that the flexible regulation allowed by the new gate provided an average water saving of 12,000 m³/ha/year compared to the rigid regulation system. A further, though smaller, margin of improvement of 5000 m³/ha/year can be achieved with an optimal regulation that follows exactly the crop water requirements. A further interesting empirical evidence is that the simulation model fits very well the irrigation water requirements of the district using only easily accessible meteorological input data, without exploiting any information from ground or remote sensors to update soil moisture or crop developments during the season. This indicates that it could be effectively used, with very limited costs and effort, to support and improve the gate management. Finally, a preliminary economic analysis shows that the cost of the gate installation is sustainable, but the upscaling of this type of intervention to larger areas requires the support of public funding to cover approximately half of the cost of investment needed for the networking infrastructures.

在欧盟的地中海国家中，改善灌溉计划的管理是实现水框架指令2000 / 60EC的目标的优先事项。在基于开放渠道网络进行输水和输水的方案中，对管理效率的限制是需要手动控制和调节大量闸门，以使流量适应实际灌溉用水需求。在世界某些地区（例如，新南威尔士州，澳大利亚）已成功实施了大型灌溉计划的自动化和协调闸门管制，但这意味着常常无法获得巨大的公共投资。与这种自上而下的方法相反，伦巴第大区（欧盟最大的灌溉区）在资助小型项目的基础上探索了一种方法，这应该展示灌溉实践中创新的潜力，并促进最有效措施的扩展。在本文中，我们分析了其中一个项目的效果，包括替换手动闸门，使用自动，遥控闸门控制向150公顷灌溉区的灌溉供应。将管理闸门的灌溉协会提供的九年的区域进水口每日流量测量值与手动调节进水口闸门时应用的刚性流量调节器以及通过分布式农业用水模拟的灌溉水需求进行了比较。在该地区广泛用于灌溉核算和计划的水文模型。结果表明，新闸门允许的灵活调节使平均节水量达到了12，与刚性调节系统相比，每年³公顷。进一步（尽管较小）的改善幅度为5000 m ³/ ha / year可以通过完全遵循作物需水量的最佳法规来实现。另一个有趣的经验证据是，该模拟模型仅使用易于获取的气象输入数据就非常适合该地区的灌溉用水需求，而无需利用地面或远程传感器的任何信息来更新季节内的土壤湿度或作物生长。这表明可以用有限的成本和精力有效地使用它来支持和改善门管理。最后，初步的经济分析表明，闸门安装的成本是可持续的，但是将此类干预措施扩大到更大的区域需要公共资金的支持，以弥补网络基础设施所需投资成本的大约一半。