Irrigation informatics is a newly emerging academic field that is a cross-disciplinary science using informatics to study the information flows and data management related to irrigation.
Agricultural productivity increases are eagerly sought by governments and industry, spurred by the realisation that world food production must double in the 21st century to feed growing populations[1] and that as irrigation makes up 36% of global food production,[2] but that new land for irrigation growth is very limited,[3] irrigation efficiency must increase.
Irrigation informatics is very much a part of the wider research into irrigation wherever information technology or data systems are used, however the term informatics is not always used to describe research involving computer systems and data management so that information science or information technology may alternatively be used.
Recent work in the general area of irrigation informatics has mentioned the exact phrase "Irrigation Informatics" with at least one publication in scientific conference proceedings using it in its title.
[4] Meteorological informatics, as with all informatics, are increasingly being used to handle the growing volumes of data that are available from sensors, remote sensing and scientific models.