Author(s): Marcos Marina-Castello; Gabriel Marro-Gros; Ana Ruiz-Varona; Raquel Trillo-Lado
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: Canal Imperial de Aragón; Digital transformation; Flood irrigation; GIS; Irrigation monitoring
Abstract: Traditional flood irrigation systems often rely on manual, handwritten logs to document daily water distribution. In the Imperial Canal of Aragón (CYA) irrigation events have been recorded for decades in the Adores book, a register maintained by canal guards. However, the potential of these records (water-demand patterns linked to crop type, topography or climatic conditions) remains limited by the lack of standardized spatial referencing or temporal precision. This study presents a framework for digitizing and structuring irrigation data while ensuring compatibility with traditional practices and cultural significance of this territorial-scale hydraulic infrastructure. The approach defines a GIS-based irrigation network with topological rules that formalize relationships among canals, gates, and plots. The first phase involved diagnosing the existing workflow. The second phase involved analyzing the hierarchy and connectivity to construct a consistent topological network. The third phase developed a model to identify plot-level irrigation sequences computing irrigation periods. The last phase validated the method in a sector, identifying factors affecting data reliability, including record precision and user familiarity with digital tools. The methodology provides a reproducible pathway for modernizing traditional irrigation monitoring, focusing on how data can be structured, and digitized, and enabling integration of historical records and future sensor-based monitoring.
Year: 2026