Principal Investigator Amos Winter
Project Website http://tatacenter.mit.edu/portfolio/bio-inspired-pressure-compensating-drip-irr…
Climate change is increasing water scarcity, creating a serious challenge to agricultural development and growth in India. This research project tackles the connected problems of shrinking water resources and unreliable or unavailable electricity.
The goal is to design a low-pressure emitter for drip irrigation, which will allow for a dramatic decrease in pumping power. For farmers who use the electrical grid to run their pumps, this will reduce their load and help mitigate power outages. Low-pressure drippers will also make small-scale, solar-powered irrigation systems feasible and cost-effective. The drippers will be self-compensating (in that they will maintain a constant flow rate over a variation of applied pressure), able to operate at 0.1-3 bar pressure, have large flow channels for clog prevention, and cost less than $0.025/each.
Drip irrigation saves 30-70% water, depending on the crop, allowing farmers to grow higher value crops while increasing their yield.