economy

“We can now control a hundreds-of-kilometre-long waterway at a look.” “It is really good as it ensures promptness and correctness in water management control, while making it possible to save time and manpower.”

These are what agricultural workers in Nampho Municipality say as they have benefited from a water management control support system introduced last year.

Agricultural informatization is what one can do once they are determined to do and the promotion of informatization is the way to make farms, districts, counties and cities well off and more civilized, they say.

The system introduced in Nampho is based on electronic maps showing the locations and characteristics of water source and irrigation facilities in the municipality, including waterways, rivers, reservoirs, pumping stations, drainage lock gates and major observation posts, and ensures scientific water control.

The introduction of the system has made it possible for the municipality to ensure efficient water control by overcoming the impediment to farming caused by a surplus-induced waste and lack of water in the rice-transplanting season, thereby reducing the consumption of water on farms as much as possible.

In particular, it makes it possible to immediately grasp the data on the present situation such as the water level and the amount of water supply at drainage posts in the rainy season and take appropriate measures in consideration of the tidal conditions in conformity with the characteristics of the municipality bordering the sea, thus minimizing damage from disastrous abnormal weather.

As the municipality has not a few major waterways with most waterway observation posts and pumping stations located in remote places, it previously took over three days to look round them once. However, the system makes it possible to immediately understand the conditions of all irrigation facilities and waterways on a real-time basis and take appropriate measures.

At present, all districts and counties in the municipality are correctly judging irrigation to and dryness of fields and taking appropriate measures on the basis of the detailed images sent from growth observation sections of fields selected on farms under the unified command of the municipal rural economy committee.

According to Yun Jin U, an official of the municipal rural economy committee, there were some farms suffering from lack of water after rain as the drainage gates would be opened indiscriminately in case of a sudden rain in order to minimize flood damage. But now, thanks to informatization, they are overcoming such tendencies and managing water to be most favourable for the development of agriculture of the municipality by finding the most reasonable way after grasping all situations numerically, he said.