IrrigOpt AI

IrrigOpt AI

IrrigOpt AI

IrrigOpt AI makes irrigation smarter by helping Indigenous farmers cut water waste, lower costs, and combat regional droughts.

Washington, USA

USA

Nonprofit

Yakima County, the second-largest agricultural producer in Washington state with a multi-billion dollar agricultural industry, heavily depends on irrigation systems fed by the Yakima River Basin. However, recent droughts have increasingly impacted the Yakama Nation living on the Yakama Indian Reservation located within the county. This issue resulted in decline of agricultural productivity and the tribe’s natural resources, leading to hundreds of millions of dollars lost in potential revenue for farmers and an estimated 7,000 job losses. This issue is further worsened by the declining conditions of the Yakima Tieton Irrigation Canal, which is expected to have a 3 billion dollar negative impact on the overall economy, with the government reporting the need for water preservation and reduced usage. This is a severely under researched problem our team discovered while volunteering at Yakima, affecting tens of thousands of people there. The lack in resources and underfunding is a theme across Indigenous communities, and the results of this research can be applied across the nation in Indigenous areas prone to droughts. Our research tackles the problem of water scarcity and lack of funding for technology to optimize irrigation systems and reduce production costs in the process by preserving water.

Our team believes in the power of cultural sensitivity, collaboration, and mutual respect. We are deeply committed to building meaningful, long-term relationships with Indigenous communities and working together to bridge cultural traditions with fully open-sourced technology. Our solution is a web-based application tailored for the irrigation districts of Yakima County. Users select their district and soil type, input water usage data, and receive AI-generated irrigation suggestions, projected crop yields, and drought forecasts. The platform uses a pre-trained machine learning model powered by 40 years of open-source climate, soil, and crop data combined with trends sourced IoT sensor networks and satellite imagery to optimize water use. These factors are included to ensure the hyper localization and accuracy for the water prediction and classification results. Instead of relying on traditional sensors, the app offers a software-driven alternative that integrates traditional farming practices with modern data analytics. It features interactive maps, real-time water tracking, and tools that assess the sustainability and economic impact of farming decisions. By combining local knowledge with advanced historical trend analysis, our solution empowers farmers with actionable insights to improve yield and conserve water.

Our solution directly serves the 14 distinct tribes in the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation whose irrigation systems are vulnerable to drought and underfunding. These communities face limited access to advanced water management technologies and often lack the infrastructure or financial resources to adapt to changing climate conditions. By combining AI with open-source data, our platform delivers hyperlocal irrigation guidance, crop yield projections, and drought forecasts tailored to local soil types and traditional practices. It empowers farmers with real-time insights to make water-efficient decisions, reduce runoff, and improve agricultural sustainability. The solution reduces dependency on expensive sensor-based systems and high cost infrastructures by offering a digital, cost-free system. It leverages AI-driven geospatial analysis and predictive modeling to optimize water usage, preserve natural resources, and support long-term agricultural resilience for both smallholder and industrial farms. In total, the solution is estimated to benefit over 1,700 families given a 1-49 acre farm size, providing saving costs up to $13.6 million - $34 million in technological usage costs and a $27.9 million dollars in annual savings for water costs irrigation system for family farms in the region gave a sampled water irrigation cost of 232.28 per acre.