Final Report Summary - WATERGOLF (Wireless distributed intelligent system for irrigation optimisation and early turf disease prevention and treatment on Golf Courses) Executive Summary:Recreational water use is usually a very small but growing percentage of total water use and is mostly tied to reservoirs. If a reservoir is kept fuller than it would otherwise be for recreation, then the water retained could be categorized as recreational usage. Recreational usage is usually non-consumptive. A report from the European Environment Agency (EEA), reveals that Europe has so far concentrated on increasing the supply of water rather than exploring ways to limit its demand. Golf courses are often targeted as using excessive amounts of water, especially in drier regions such as regions in the South of Europe. Some governments have labelled golf course water usage as agricultural in order to deflect environmentalist’s charges of wasting water. The objective of the project was the development of a system based on a wireless network of sensors and artificial intelligence which provides support to green keepers when making decisions related to irrigation and treatments on the golf course.The WaterGolf system was developed with a number of sensors. The main sensors that the system uses are water content (Soil Moisture), soil conductivity, soil temperature and soil nitrate. Moreover the project also has a weather station made up of a suite of sensors related to weather including an evapo-transpiration sensor measuring the water lost due to evaporation from the grass. The project also developed an optical sensor using special lenses to detect stress in the grass and identify particular conditions like fungi.All the sensors are connected with a wireless network which is capable of transmitting data even when the nodes are buried underground. A gateway was then developed to communicate between the wireless network and a database.The project also carried an extensive study of turf grass knowledge which was analysed and transformed into rules which an expert system could understand. These rules where then fed into an expert system and using real time data from the wireless network on the golf course the expert system can provide early detection of stress and conditions serving as a decision support system for the golf course green keeper.The system was developed to be modular allowing the system to be as small as two sensors monitoring a green up to a large system of 50+ sensors monitoring a full golf course. With larger systems, WaterGolf also offers the green keeper to utilize mini weather stations that calculate the water distribution considering wind, solar radiation and other important factors.Project Context and Objectives:Golf is a sport played by more than 4 million registered players around Europe. Such a big and growing participation is also reflected in the large amount of clubs around Europe reaching almost than 7,000 in 2014. This is also a significant economy in Europe with a number of high class non EU players coming into Europe to play golf especially in periods when golf courses would be closed in other regions of the world.Notwithstanding, although Golf is a good contributor to the European economy it is also a source of environmental problems. Golf courses are heavy users of water, artificial fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals that harm the environment. Over the years some governments have hidden the environmental impact of such activities by disguising them as mainstream agricultural activities.The problem of high water usage is more apparent in the southern part of Europe especially the Mediterranean region where high summer temperatures and very low rainfall contribute towards the need for irrigation. Most golf courses rely on underground deep wells/boreholes to extract water and irrigate their golf courses but this comes at an expense. Such activities puts pressure on the filtering properties of the rock from where the water is extracted and in the long run such activities could create a problem with salinity and other factors that in turn could have an impact on other sectors. Agriculture also relies on this form of water extraction, in some regions this form of extraction is used to supply water to the general public. Therefore, it is imperative to take action at this point for Europe to ensure a sustainable water usage policy.WaterGolf is essentially a tool for green keepers (personnel responsible in a golf course for managing turf grass including irrigation, treatment etc.). At the basis of the technology is a wireless network with the capability of transmitting data when the nodes are buried underground. The network was developed to be as modular as possible. A special software was then developed to transform the information fed by the network into actions or predictions for the green keeper. Main Objectives of the projectDevelopment of a knowledgebase on turfgrass management – Many research has been done on the parameters that affect certain conditions in turfgrass, conditions like Fungi, wilt, dollar spot and many others that become a threat to the golf course green keeper. Such diseases affect the course from an aesthetic point of view up to the level of quality of grass expected for playing golf professionally. Most of the time when such diseases become apparent it would be already too late and treatments would only prevent further contamination rather than fixing the current problem.The experts went through a number of research and extracted ‘rules’ from this research. Not all research could be used for this manner especially that research that does not contain hard data. Researchers often refer to ‘hot climates’ or ‘high temperatures’ but neglect to define a point at which certain problems might be assumed to happen and therefore the analysis of this research created a challenge for the researchers. Furthermore some research also defines ‘markers’ which are not being measured by the WaterGolf Network. For example the use of calcium levels in the soil or Potassium. There are no commercial sensors to read these parameters and hence such ‘rules’ are only inserted in the knowledgebase to be used if the green keeper would complement the sensor network with his insight on the quality of the soil.Development of an underground wireless sensor network – A special network was created to allow the various sensors of the WaterGolf system to be connected with the knowledgebase. Golf courses are regarded for their aesthetics, providing the player a ‘pleasure’ to play on. To keep this ‘aesthetic’ principle it is important that any technology installed does not, in any way, lower the quality of the aesthetics. This is reflected in the complexity of an irrigation network which is installed, completely, underground (more than 1 meter buried in certain cases).To keep with this ‘norm’ a special network was created with custom antennas that could transmit wireless signals from underground. The network runs on batteries with the ability to be charged from the irrigation network when irrigation network is not being utilized. The network uses 868 Mhz as a frequency, and this was decided based on a balance between line of sight transmission and underground wireless penetration. The network is made up of 3 components. Nodes are the leaves of the network, and any sensor is always connected to a node. The nodes are battery powered and are the only component that can be buried underground and allow for charging through the irrigation network. The middle component ‘branches’ are called routers. Routers are powered directly from a power source and are not buried. There antennas were designed specifically to allow for better reception from underground nodes. The final component of the network is the gateway. The gateway is a special system that translates the data coming in from the wireless network into the database of the system. Development of an optical sensor and NIR sensor for early detection of stress and diseases – one of the key aspects to minimizing irrigation water and treatments is the ability to detect stress levels and disease occurrence at an early stage. One of the objectives of this project is to develop two sensors, one reading the nitrate level and one reading the stress level of the turf grass. The nitrate sensor uses NIR technology to determine the level of nitrate in water extracted from the soil while the stress sensor uses special lenses and a set of computer vision algorithms to determine the stress level in the turf grass. The optical sensor also determines particular diseases and conditions at an earlier stage than when visual signs become apparent.Development of Software to interpret the results and provide actions to the green keeper – Although the sensors on the field provide a great deal of insight to the green keeper, it is impossible for the green keeper to fuse information from sensors and determine/predict conditions just by looking at the sensors. Therefore to make use of the knowledgebase created, an expert system was created to infer decisions and actions from the knowledgebase. The expert system takes inputs from the WaterGolf network, online weather data, knowledge on the particular soil type and grass type and other data. Using these inputs, the expert system then comes out with predictions and actions that should be taken by the green keeper. The software integrates also with irrigation networks where an automatic irrigation program (schedule) can be created and the system will automatically feed the network information on which sections of the golf course should be irrigated.Dissemination – Dissemination activities were required in order to ensure the propagation of the results of the project beyond the consortium to a wider audience. All partners were required to take an active role in discussing and deciding the content of the published material, ensuring that no confidential information is divulged. An Exploitation Manager was appointed by the consortium based on his track record and experience in the field, where his role was to coordinate all activities encompassing any transfer of knowledge outside the Consortium; however particular actions were to be executed by designated partners. Conferences, scientific papers and events were to be coordinated by TURFE who took advantage of the events which they were regularly invited to. Dissemination material was edited and elaborated in the following formats: leaflets and posters, video and website. Furthermore, articles will be elaborated and published in various different trade magazines, and other relevant publications EU-wide, including associated countries. TURFE took the lead in this sub-task given that he has the greatest publication record of all partners. Mailing of information regarding the project to government authorities and interested parties was also carried out toward the end of the project. Information and exhibition stands were set up and manned at various events that were attended. A promotional video was also produced, highlighting the process of the project work and the benefits of the final product. This video was uploaded on the WaterGolf project website, and also on YouTube. A series ov prestigious conferences were attended by the partners, where talks were given to explain the project objectives, benefits and non-confidential R&D results.Project Results:Development of an underground wireless networkOne of the main objectives of this project was the development of an underground wireless network. When the project started, a number of specifications were set by the SMEs in the consortium detailing the range, structure and other limitation one would find in a typical golf course. As already spoken about in this report, a golf course has an aesthetic feature which has to be respected and players do not expect to see certain technology on a green. Some players actually play golf as a relaxation from the day to day operations where we are mostly ‘bombarded’ with technology and communication.With these specifications, the experts set about creating a blueprint for the wireless network. First and foremost it was clear that the network, apart from being used to read sensors on the field, could also be used as a means of communication in the future. Such communication will allow system integrators like BAILOY to operate valves or other actuators on a golf course for irrigation or other purposes. The second limiting factor was the fact that it had to be battery operated and would at least provide a lifetime, close to the competition and if possible better than the competition. Thirdly, it was clear that, at least, the sensors would be buried underground and hence for a feasible solution to be provided, the devices connecting the sensor to the wireless network would have to be buried also underground near the sensor. With these factors in mind the experts came out with a solution which balances the needs of the project. The developed wireless network developed was based on the following features:1) A number of tests were done to select the right frequency for the network. Eventually a balance had to be found between line of sight range (Air to Air) and underground penetration (Air to Ground) transmission. The frequency selected was that of 868 Mhz. Some of our competition use a 433MHz band but during our test this suffered dramatically as it was difficult to create an Antenna which could fit in the size of the underground node.2) The network had to be available all the time. Contrary to normal low-power wireless networks, where devices are put in a sleep state for large periods of time, the WaterGolf network would have to be on all the time. This way the network can be used as a communication network sending out commands from the co-ordinator (gateway) down to the nodes on the network. This problem was solved by utilizing an innovative technology in radio transceivers whereby a radio could ‘sniff’ or ‘sense’ wireless reception and then wakeup and receive the data. While in ‘sniff’ mode the devices would not be consuming too much power and hence a battery life longer than 2 years could still be attainable.3) The radio technology used should allow the creation of a special protocol for the needs of the WaterGolf technology. 4) The network should allow the whole golf course to be covered with sensors and therefore should have a range more than 2 km, in total, between the gateway and the furthest node. This was achieved by allowing the network to ‘hop’ between one router and the other. Essentially this means the router are in a Mesh configuration with pre-defined routing tables. These tables can change over time and hence it is a continuously adapting network.Based on these features the wireless network was developed by the experts and its performance was then evaluated in the field during the validation period. The network has a line of sight range of around 200 meters between routers and a ground to air (node to router) range of about 50 meters. In total the network is made up of 3 components, Nodes which are the leaves of the network, Routers which are the branches and the co-ordinator referred to mostly as the gateway.Both the Node and the Router utilize the same platform with minor difference. The Routers are powered and hence do not have a charging circuit while the nodes could be battery powered, or battery powered and charged through the irrigation network. Further on the report explains the interface circuit of the nodes with the sensors.The heart of the network is an embedded Linux system which serves as the gateway of the network. The gateway, is made up of a software that manages the wireless network, and a web based interface that allows installers to set-up the network and it also provides a set of diagnostic tools for the technician to monitor the network and solve any issues. The routing of the network is automatically configured and allows for the creation of different types of nodes with different types of sensors. This means that essentially the network can be used for other scenarios also.Development of sensor interface for all the sensors in the projectThe wireless network would have no value for the WaterGolf technology without the sensors inside the network. The sensors are required to read real-time parameters of the soil and other factors in the golf course. Based on the initial study of the project and the outcome of the knowledge base set-up, the following sensors were deemed as required for the WaterGolf technology to operate on the set specifications:• Soil Water Content – This is the most important factor as it is the primary factor affecting irrigation. The sensors selected for reading Water Content use the dielectric principle to measure water content in the soil• Soil Temperature – This is important for the determination of certain conditions. Many conditions, especially those related with the roots of the grass are dependent on the temperature of the soil.• Conductivity – although the conductivity of soil is not in itself important, the conductivity is directly related with the salinity in the soil therefore this parameter is very important. If the salinity in soil increases too much, this would create stress on the roots to acquire water, even if ample water is provided.• Nitrate/Nitrogen – many conditions in turf grass are directly related to the level of nitrate in the soil. This particular sensor is not available off the shelf and was one of the main objectives of this project.• Weather related sensorso Air temperature and humidityo Wind direction and speed – This information is very important as it is used to calculate the spread in irrigation especially in days of high wind speed. o Rain fall – obviously this is very important as it directly affects the irrigation required on a golf course. It is also important to calculate the possibility of particular conditions.o Solar Radiation – The integration of this parameter provides an insight into the evapotranspiration that could have occurred over a day. Notwithstanding another sensor was specifically integrated to measure evapotranspiration.o Evapotranspiration – This sensor is developed by E&TS and is a step better than solar radiation as it considers temperature and wind in its calculation of evapotranspiration. The sensor developed is based on two temperature sensors. One of the temperature sensors is exposed in the air without any radiation shields while the other sensor is dipped in a pool of distilled water. The differentiation of the sensors and the integration of that value over a period of time is directly related to the evapotranspiration that occurs over that period of time. • Turf Stress – This sensor was also developed in the project. The sensor, as explained later on, measures the stress of turf grass. Although most of the sensors used were off-the-shelf items, these used different interfaces and hence a special interface had to be developed for every sensor. Furthermore given these sensors will be installed in an open area such as a golf course it is prone to a lightning strike. Therefore, as is the norm with all products for the golf course industry, special lightning protection was developed for every interface, especially for analogue output sensors.The system was developed to be as modular as possible and therefore, every node can accept any type of sensor. All the configuration is done from the gateway and the nodes automatically download the settings and register the sensors automatically. Even the weather station is essentially a node.Study on the impact of the certain parameters on turf grass – Knowledgebase creation.One of the most important results of this project was to create a knowledgebase of information, rules and equations related to turfgrass management. Three main arias were studied and analysed:• Water – This particular section deals with input and output between different types of turfs. The knowledge takes into consideration, root depth and other important factors for every type of grass. The following grass types where taken into consideration:o Bentgrass, Bemudagrass, red fescue, seashore paspalum, bentgrass, tall fescue, perennial rygrass, smooth meadow-grass, red fescue, sheep fescue, zoysiagrass, seashore paspalum, manilagrass.• Weeds – This area deals with weeds that are prone to growing in golf courses. Weeds are a major problem as their seeds are easily transported with wind. The technique used by most green keepers is to calculate their emergence and apply treatment then when the weeds are in their week state. The following weeds where taken into consideration;o Digitaria sanguinalis, setaria viridis, eleusine endica, trifolium repensk poa annua, bellis perennis, taraxacum officinalis, poa trivialis, portulaca oleracea.• Fungi - The final part of the knowledgebase is based on fungi, which is very common in turf grass. The fungi covered in this study were pythium, Rhizoctonia, S. Hoemeocarpa (Dollar spot), Bipolaris spp., Drechslera, M. nivale and L. fuciformis. The study focused on outlining a probability of certain disease to occur.For each of the areas outlined, a set of documents and excel sheets were creating outlining a number of equations that would ultimately result in a percentage of occurrence or with the case of Water it would come up with a value relating to the optimum irrigation.Development of an optical sensor for inspection of turfgrass diseases and conditionsOne of the main developments of the project was a turf grass ‘stress’ detection level. The stress, as has been referred to in this report, relates to the chlorophyll content inside the leaves of the turf. This, although not visible to the naked eye, could be viewed using particular lenses developed for this purposes. The experts inside the project, create an optical sensor, making use of 2 vision sensors, one having this lens implemented in the optics and the other sensor used regular RGB imaging. Using computer vision on a set of these 2 types of images, the sensor can extract signatures and relate them to particular conditions.The system makes use of an embedded Linux system installed in the optical sensor case. The embedded Linux takes care of acquiring the images and thereafter processing them using openCV. OpenCV is a special open source computer library for processing images with typical computer vision filters and other algorithms. At the end of the processing line, the system comes up with a set of outputs such as the possibility of an occurrence of a particular disease or water stress.The system was linked with the wireless network, and all commands and operations could be passed to and from the system using the wireless network. The system also incorporates a small board that controls the power to the embedded Linux system specifically for allowing the optical sensor to work using Battery power. The sensor can be charged using a solar power. Development of a nitrate sensor for real-time nitrate level reading from the soilFrom the development of the knowledgebase it was clear that one of the most important factors for the determination of particular conditions especially in the Fungi and Weeds areas is the level of nitrate in the soil. Currently no sensor exists in the market that can measure nitrate in-situ. Some sensor do exist using ion selective electrodes but these are not to be installed in-situ due to the sensitive electrodes.The experts inside the project created a sensor that could be installed in-situ and automatically detect nitrate using NIR technology. NIR is used in many chemical analysis typically using a NIR spectrophotometer. For this project, the team identified particular wavelengths which are affected by the level of nitrate in a medium. Then, using special lasers tuned to this particular wavelength, and a special crystal through which, water extracted automatically from the golf course, can be passed and the NIR absorption can be read. The level of light, absorbed by the medium is directly related to the level of nitrate inside that medium. A sensor was then integrated with the rest of the network so that its control and output could be done through the wireless network. Development of software for monitoring and managing the WaterGolf systemOne of the key differences between WaterGolf and competing systems is the ability to use its software for understanding all the realtime readings from the sensors. To do this the team developed a client-server software. The client is intended to be the interface between the green keeper and the system while the server is where the processing is done.The client software is divided into the following subsystems: i) the WaterGolf main dashboard, which can be used as a desktop application to manage the entire system; ii) the server, which is in charge of the management and processing of all data fetched from the golf course and to deal with external requests; and iii) the consultancy system, which is a tool for the expert consultant to remotely advise the green-keeper.The main dashboard that is used by the green-keeper on a standard stand-alone deployment. It allows the management of the entire system through web-method calls to the server API. Suggestions and irrigation recommendations are shown in the main screen, while all complex behaviours are only revealed to an advanced and password-protected user. It is developed using a 2-tier architecture: the user interface layer (for user interactions) and the middleware layer (for communications with the back-end). It is also possible to use it outside of the golf course (at home, while commuting, etc.).The server is the kernel of the system and is implemented as a dynamic link library (.DLL). The library exports the classes and methods as web-services. The web-services interface has been developed using Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), as explained below. It can be exported using the following technologies:• RESTful. It accepts JSON and XML as input encoding and use JSON as output encoding (also XML-ready). A broad audience of languages is capable of using this transport method, so it provides a high integration capacity with third-party systems.• SOAP. Uses the basic HTTP binding (neither authentication nor encryption is needed due to the fact that this is provided by the SSL/TLS security layer). MEX and WSDL are used for defining the interface. It is a well-established industry standard for business interoperability.• Net.TCP. Uses the WCF custom binding (with binary encoding) for high performance. This is useful when both sides are implemented in .NET.Development of an expert system to infer decision from within the knowledgebase.The expert system in the project was split into 3 modules. These modules are perfectly in line with the 3 areas covered in the knowledgebase, Irrigation or Water application, Weeds and Fungi.IrrigationIntelligent irrigation management is a key factor for optimising the maintenance of a golf facility. The irrigation expert system gathers measurements from the evapotranspiration and the underground sensor to obtain the evapotranspiration value and the soil water content respectively. The system also requires the green-keeper to introduce the following parameters: first, it needs to know the soil type where the sensors are placed. The soil can be composed of sand, loam, clay, silt or their respective combinations, which has a direct relationship with the underground sensor measurements. Second, the turf grass type also needs to be specified since it is related to the evapotranspiration measurements. Taking this values into account, the system is able to estimate the time before complete water depletion in the corresponding golf course zone, and the necessary amount of water that must be reintegrated to the soil.These calculations are subject to the weather forecast. The system takes it into account when providing irrigation suggestions. For example, when the system recommends to irrigate, it checks if it is expected to rain according to the weather forecast source. If it does, the amount of water to be reintegrated for the sprinklers is reduced according to the expected amount of rain. The intelligent system retrieves weather forecasts from different sources. The predictions of these forecast sources are compared to the values obtained by a physical weather station placed in the golf course. Therefore, a voting system determines which of the forecast sources is the most reliable, and hence, this one will be used in the next irrigation prediction.Weeds Expert The control of weeds plays a large role in golf course turf grass management, both in financial terms and from an environmental viability point of view. There is a substantial push towards the progressive reduction (or elimination altogether) of chemical weed control products on golf courses, but currently the main means for weed control remains chemical. Hence, that the early detection of weeds germination would allow green-keepers on taking preventive actions before the weeds appear, and thus, preventing the usage of chemical products.Not enough numerical data on the etiology of common golf course weeds is available, despite a large number of research has been carried out by turf grass universities. Therefore, after having selected seven of the most common golf course weeds (crabgrass, foxtail, goosegrass, white clover, daisy, dandelion, annual meadowgrass/bluegrass), the turf grass expert partners found that only two types of numerical etiology data were available: Growing Degree Days (or GDD; a measurement of the growth and development of plants and insects during the growing season) and soil/air temperatures, being the GDD dependant on the other.Thus, GDD is the method employed in WaterGolf to determine the eagerness of the most common green course weeds of appearing based on the average soil and air temperatures. Since GDD requires the meteorological readings within a time window (usually all readings previous to the weed germination), the platform retrieves and stores the measurements of the meteorological station. Then, according to the accumulated difference between the average air/soil temperature and the weed basal temperature (unique to each weed type) and only when the average temperature is above the weed basal temperature, different thresholds to determine the probability of each weed appearing are defined. More specifically, three alarm levels have been defined: no alarm (the probability of a certain weed is close to 0 %); low probability alarm (there are certain evidences indicating that a weed may grow, but the system cannot ensure it, which launches a warning); and high probability alarms (there are firm evidences of weed germinating, so we prompt the green-keeper with an alarm that they has to take actions to eradicate them). As a final note, take into account that the system does not indicate what chemical products to use for the weed eradication to avoid any potential misuse or error. These thresholds can be modified by the green-keeper using a rule engine editor similar to the one used for irrigation.Fungi ExpertThe control of turfgrass fungal diseases has a similar financial and environmental impact on golf courses as weed management. The following common fungal diseases were selected and researched for etiology parameters: Pythium spp. (Pythium blight), Rhizoctonia cerealis (Yellow patch), Sclerotinia hoemeocarpa (Dollar spot), Bipolaris spp. (Anthracnose 1), Drechslera spp. (Anthracnose 2), Michrodochium nivale (Pink snow mold), and Laetisaria fuciformis (Red thread). A large number of numeric parameters are available in bibliography, and these were all included in the rules for fungal disease since the turf grass type needs to be determined (different susceptibility to various turf grass diseases can be attributed to the various turf grass types). Also, soil and air temperature, pH, air relative humidity and leaf wetness are used as input parameters, measured by the soil sensors and by a weather station. The system outputs for fungal disease forecast and management comprise both a disease- and turf grass-specific probability calculation equations, and the issue of a compendium of available chemical products for fungal disease treatment and prevention, including their dosage.Taking this into account, the expert system determines the probability of the previously specified fungal diseases based on the previously mentioned parameters (considering that each fungal disease depends on different parameter combinations and ranges). Similarly to the weed expert system, three alarm levels have been defined to indicate the eagerness of each fungal disease appearance: no alarm (no evidences were found that a certain fungal disease appeared); low probability alarm (there are some evidences that indicate that a certain fungal disease has appeared, but the system cannot ensure it, so the green-keeper is warned about this situation); and high probability alarm (the system is certain that a fungal disease has appeared, and thus, it prompts the green-keeper to take corrective actions to eradicate it). In this case, whenever a high priority alarm is launched, WaterGolf recommends the dosage and chemical product to eliminate the fungal disease.Fertility Expert SystemThe last expert system is related to the fertility status of the golf course. Large sums of money are spent yearly for its fertilization, and man-hours and fuel are used to control the vegetative peaks usually associated with excessive or incorrect timing or dosage of fertilization. Furthermore, excessive or insufficient fertilization can cause the onset of fungal diseases or weed insurgence, thus generating the need for more financial expenditure and a higher environmental impact of the golf course. Soil nitrates measured by a specific sensor are used as the main input, being the output a discrete soil fertility index.The fertility status of the golf course is measured through the nitrogen level registered in different zones of the facilities. In case of presenting a critical value above the expected range of nitrates in the soil (the normal range is between 10 and 30 nitrate ions (〖NO〗_3^-) ppm), an alarm indicating a poor fertilisation state is launched. On the other hand, if this value largely surpasses this normal range, an over-fertilisation alarm is launched. In both situations, the green-keeper has to take corrective actions to normalise the nitrate levels in the soil.Validation of the Watergolf technologyWhen the system was finally ready, it was time to put the system in the field as most of the tests done up to that period where in the lab rather than in the golf course. The system was first installed at the golf course in Montecchia for a period of around 2 months. The technology performed well, with minor changes done to facilitate some problems that were expected in the installation. After the 2 months of trial and after analysis from experts, it was clear that some of the conditions, implemented in the knowledgebase and its software could not be validated this way as the conditions present in the golf course would not favour the outcome of these conditions. Example certain fungi was not expected due to the hot summer weather during the validation. For this reason, it was decided to install a second system at the facilities of TURFE in PISA where the system can be subjected to controlled conditions. TURFE’s facilities had turf grass samples already and these could be subjected to water stress, lower temperatures, etc. In Montecchia, given that the golf course was open and the system is installed in a ‘live’ area, the grass could not be subjected to particular conditions as this would affect the quality of the grass.Potential Impact:With 7,000 golf courses by 2015, Europe has the second largest market after the USA. Although in Europe the major market is based in the UK and Ireland with around 44% of the European Market, southern countries are the most popular for recreational activities and as such the creation of new golf courses are gaining popularity (e.g. Spain with 350 golf courses, Italy with 280 golf courses, and Portugal with almost 90 golf courses with an average yearly increase of 8%. Although recreational water use is a significant requirement in northern countries, it is in the southern countries where golf courses are increasing steadily, optimization in water use is required. Each golf course typically uses 500,000 m3 of water on average and the use of water and fertilizer is one of the main expenses in Golf courses maintenance.Rising living standards have pushed the use of water resources beyond sustainable levels, according to a United Nations World Water Development Report in 2014. A report from the European Environment Agency (EEA), reveals that Europe has so far concentrated on increasing the supply of water rather than exploring ways to limit its demand. As a result, all Europe, and Southern Europe in particular, is experiencing chronic water scarcity as the EEA claims, and climate change will only exacerbate the situation. However, it is not only southern countries that need to control recreational use of water, as demonstrated in the different Golf Course maintenance programs.The WaterGolf project is aligned with these societal needs and its aim was to develop a user-friendly artificial intelligence-based control system technology to monitor environmental parameters and turf grass condition in order to optimize to the maximum the irrigation of Golf Courses, its maintenance and the use of additives applied to irrigation water.Furthermore, WaterGolf aims to improve on a game that has a positive influence on public health. It is a sport which can be played later in life than the majority of sports and can be easily played by people of varying abilities. As well as being a catalyst for interaction between age groups, golf is also one of the few sports that men and women can play together. The WaterGolf project thus has an indirect positive impact on the social behaviour of participants and is beneficial to the local social fabric.Economic ImpactGolf has a relevant participation in today’s economy and is a promising activity for the future according to a study conducted by The Professional Golfer’s Association (PGA) in 2012:•The golf industry generated €15.1 Billion of direct revenues in the European economy, €52.6 billion in the USA and €2.3 billion in Australia.• The industry supports close to 180,000 jobs in the EU alone and pays almost €4.40 billion in wages.• Within the golf economy, golf tourism contributes over €1.6 billion which has a very significant impact on European economies, particularly in Spain and Portugal.However, due to the recent economic downturn, the golf courses are facing a worrying combination of decreasing revenues and increasing costs. It is estimated that around €1.24 billion is spent annually on golf course maintenance (such as irrigation water, grass seeds, herbicides, pesticides and sand). To solve their economic problems, a combination of economic strategy and costs reduction is necessary to face this situation. With this economic situation, it is clear that WaterGolf will increase the reduction of costs due to water irrigation use, turf diseases treatments and client satisfaction, being a good tool to be used to face current economic situation by golf courses around Europe.In this context, a potential application scenario where WaterGolf would result in great economic savings would be in the prevention of weed. For instance, a typical outburst of pythium in a golf course can cause the golf course a staggering € 3,000 in treatments and this would still leave the part affected the worst with a lower quality grass and in some cases, players would be unable to play in this part (especially if some treatments are used). Other golf courses who run a totally organic or biological regime are unable to use certain treatments and chemicals and hence they would have to rely on tools such as WaterGolf for early detection and remedy of a problem before it comes too large to tackle using the organic or biological treatments.Societal benefitsAlthough no European legislation has been specifically designed for golf, much of the new legislations apply directly to golf course developments and operations and has particular importance for golf club operators, developers and managers.There are various issues surrounding golf courses with regards to environmental issues such as:• Water Conservation;• Water Use in Water Stressed Areas;• Surface Water Run-off and Water Quality Management;• Refuse and silt transportation during storm events;• Over-application of fertilizers and chemicals.WaterGolf contributes to the fulfilment and optimization of these issues, and takes into consideration the high dependence of golf courses on environmental burdens, thus reducing golf course costs and increasing their productivity through client satisfaction. In addition, WaterGolf improves the environmental standards by the optimization of water use and fertilizer use for golf courses and helps to comply with National EU policies, including Common Agriculture Policy, Nitrate directive (Council Directive 91/676/EEC, Water protection and management (directive 2000/60/EC 40), among other European and national directives specifically defined by each country.According to a research report carried out Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA), the amount of water used for irrigation for golf courses is growing: it accounts for one-half of one percent of all water used annually, and one and one half percent of all irrigated water applied. From 2003-2005, the average water use for golf course irrigation in the U.S. was estimated to be 2,312,701 acre-feet per year. That equates to approximately 2.08 billion gallons of water per day for golf course irrigation in the U.S. The report states further that “Golf facilities should continue take advantage of technology as part of the irrigation decision-making process to conserve water. The utilization of data from soil sensors for irrigation scheduling decisions is likely to increase in the future as the equipment becomes more reliable and affordable.” This report stresses out that Golf facilities must pro-actively conserve water to becoming a sustainable business. Optimizing the acreage of irrigated turfgrass, implementing best management practices and utilizing technology to make water application decisions are key to becoming responsible users of water. The report concludes by saying that golf facilities located in areas of limited water supplies should irrigate only the turfgrass essential for the play of the game.WaterGolf project contributes to the saving of the already depleted water resources, reducing the quantities of fertilizers added to irrigation water, limiting the energy used for irrigation, and avoiding the need of pesticides by means of prognosis of turf health.Impact on European SME competitiveness and knowledge-baseThe WaterGolf system provides golf courses SMEs with a cost effective, practical tool for the supervision and control of golf turfgrass management. Furthermore, the use of user-friendly AI technology will accelerate the training process and reception of the new technology by the green keepers, thus saving time on training and ensuring the optimisation of resources and increasing competitiveness.WaterGolf presents also a shift towards a knowledge-based workforce, adding value to the execution of green keeping activities, enabling a centralized supervision of Golf turfgrass. The benefits of the WaterGolf project in this regard will provide collaborative opportunities for green keepers with different degrees of expertise, increasing their know-how and technological skills.WaterGolf increases the competitiveness of golf courses by being at the forefront of the latest turf management and treatments, providing a new knowledge-base that are still unavailable, thus increasing the quality of service given.Dissemination ActivitiesBy employing the foreseen dissemination channels selected for the designated target audience the consortium carried out 34 dissemination activities in total. This entails the preparation of informative dissemination material including on-line information sharing, representation on thematic conferences and workshops, industry fairs and exhibitions. The main dissemination activities included the project website at www.watergolf-project.com leaflet, poster, video, press releases and articles on the CORDIS website and partners’ websites. In total 13 articles and press releases were published in online trade/scientific magazines, as the project partners deemed it important to have a strong online presence and promote the project as much as possible. Many of the prestigious events attended (such as the European Turfgrass Society - ETS) signifies high communication impact as such conferences attract thousands of visitors from academia as well as from the industry. Digital media such as the website, the video as well as the pdf leaflet and poster had an important role for wider coverage as dissemination was not restricted to time and location and the exploitation board could provide information for all interested parties anytime. Most of the actions were targeted toward the relevant industry segments to facilitate pre-marketing activity. Information flow to the research community was intensified as the project R&D progressed and a peer reviewed scientific publication was published and presented during the 17th International Conference of the Catalan Association for Artificial Intelligence (CCIA 2014), as well two scientific articles on the Golf Business News and PitchCare, amongst others.Exploitation of resultsThe commercial route envisaged for the exploitation of the results will be carried out via consortium members. The sales and marketing strategy is based on a business plans as detailed in the final PUDF. The marketing objectives and target market segments have also been identified by the exploitation board. Prospective customers have been shortlisted on a mailing list, and were contacted towards the end of the project with the project results and with the pricing of the system. Market changes and the activities of competitors were continuously being monitored by all the SMEs in the exploitation board (Market Watch), whilst the RTDs took into account changing customer needs and developments in technology (Technology Watch). The SMEs were constantly identifying existing, potential and key customers.It was agreed by the exploitation board that the most adequate exploitation route is that the SMEs are directly involved in the sales of the system, without an intermediary. It is considered that the technical SMEs (BAILOY, E&TS and ART) will be more directly involved in the day-by-day exploitation than the end-user SMEs (CWAT and MONTECCHIA). However CWAT will be more involved in after-sales (installation, training and maintenance).The roles of the SMEs in the exploitation are as follows:• BAILOY (technical SME) – Irrigation product dealers, responsible for the manufacturing, integration, packaging and QA. They will provide their knowledge on the distribution and commercialization of irrigation devices and systems, providing a good push on the introduction of the WaterGolf system into the market. They will give royalty from sales to the rest of the owners of results.• ART (technical SME) – responsible for software maintenance/improvement. They will receive royalty from sales.• E&TS (technical SME) – Irrigation specialized electronics providers. They will manufacture the evapo-transpiration sensor and will receive royalty from sales to the rest of the owners of results.• CWAT (end user SME) – Golf course irrigation installer, responsible for the installation and maintenance of the WaterGolf system to golf course clients and to provide training to Green Keepers. Will get the prototype and receives royalties from every sale.• MONTECCHIA (end user SME) – Golf course. Acted as a “test-lab” for the WaterGolf system, and will use the prototype for demonstration purposes to interested parties. Will receive royalties from sales.The commercial WaterGolf system can be sold in three different versions: Basic, Intermediate and advanced. The Basic system covers 2 golf putting greens (2 holes), whereas the Intermediate covers 4 greens. The Advanced system on the other hand can cover up to 9 greens, which means that it can cover an entire 18-hole golf course.The forecasted revenues are expected to be around €2.45M over a 5-year period, resulting in an overall direct profit of €1.10M translating in a ROI of 0.96. Marketing, RTD (Innovation), personnel costs and investments have also been considered.List of Websites:www.watergolf-project.comWaterGolf Distributor:BAILOYhttp://www.bailoy.comBailoy Products Limited, The Old Forge, High Street, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UB7 0AQ,England.Tel: +44 (0)2088970125Fax: +44 2087598202Email: info@bailoy.com Documenti correlati final1-watergolf-leaflet-final2.pdf
