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By Christine Griffiths
Can wireless broadband actually help conserve water? It is in Georgia — thanks to The Nature Conservancy and its partners.
Wireless broadband service introduced by the Conservancy and government agencies is helping to bridge a gap between farming and freshwater conservation in southwest Georgia — a region fraught with drought, intense pumping for irrigation, and a struggling economy.
Farmers in the program use data transmitted across the network to fine-tune their irrigation — saving hundreds of millions of gallons of water every year. And now the network is being expanded to serve the region as a whole.
Computing for Conservation
A collaboration of private and public partners are helping farmers — the backbone of southwest Georgia’s economy — employ broadband technology to use limited water resources more efficiently while improving crop production and lowering fuel costs.
In 2005, The Nature Conservancy worked in conjunction with the Flint River Soil and Water Conservation District and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service to introduce a 100-square-mile wireless broadband network in Calhoun County, Georgia, to help farmers conserve irrigation water.
Using the broadband network, farmers are able to access real-time data from thousands of acres of farmland, including soil moisture readings, rainfall quantities and images from wireless cameras mounted in the field.
With this data at their fingertips, farmers are able to modify how much water they use to irrigate their crops.
During two years, farmers using this network realized a savings of 267 million gallons of water — a 15 percent reduction in water use, according to David Reckford, director of the Lower Flint River Basin Project for The Nature Conservancy in Georgia.
Technology Produces Lasting Results
“The results were so successful and welcomed by the farmers that we are now assisting in the deployment of a larger, more encompassing broadband network, which will serve not only the farm community but the southwest Georgia region as a whole,” says Reckford.
Click to see a map of the five-county broadband range.
Supported with state and federal funding, the first phase of the five-county broadband network is going live in August. Within the next two years, the wireless network will extend to include all rural areas in Baker, Calhoun, Early, Miller and Mitchell counties.
Southwest Georgia’s broadband network is among the first of its kind and is being established as a model for other agricultural communities, according to Ron Ham, project manager for the South Georgia Regional Information Technology Authority, the entity created to represent the five rural counties and oversee the development of the broadband network.
Community Benefits
The wireless broadband will have many advantages for the southwest Georgia region beyond water conservation, including:
- Improved communications for emergency services and hospitals;
- Increased access to information for schools; and
- Opportunities for economic development
“Anything we can do to ensure that our water resources will be around for our children, grandchildren and future generations is a worthwhile endeavor,” says Marty McLendon, a southwest Georgia farmer and chairman of the Flint River Soil and Water Conservation District.
Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Mark Godfrey/TNC (Southwest Georgia Farm Field); Photo © Mark Godfrey/TNC (Lower Flint River Basin).
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