ABU DHABI // An airline pilot and part-time inventor has created a machine that waters date palm trees only when needed.
“The solution to overwatering is simple technology and my idea is to monitor the moisture at the roots,” said Hartmut Mausolf, a German.
Mr Mausolf’s invention, which he has named Water only on Demand, or Wood, consists of a ceramic water sensor that is placed near a palm tree’s roots.
When the moisture level decreases it depresses a membrane, which eases pressure on a silicon tube, allowing water to flow from a tap directly into the roots of the tree.
Given that the sensor is calibrated to the water requirements of the roots, the invention only allows 100 to 150 litres of water for each palm tree a day.
Mr Mausolf’s research shows palm trees are, on average, being watered with between 200 to 300 litres a day, much of which never reaches the roots.
“Most of the time, because watering time is so short for most gardeners, they overwater the plants, and a lot of the water is wasted because it seeps through the sand or it evaporates on the surface,” he said. Mr Mausolf has installed water metres on several palm trees.
A study last year by the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi also showed that farmers were using more than twice as much water as was needed to irrigate palm trees.
The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations says the UAE has more than 40 million palm trees.
If farmers are using twice as much water as is needed, it means that up to 6 billion litres of water are wasted a day. This equals 2,400 Olympic-sized swimming pools in volume.
Overwatering is mostly caused by human error, said Mr Mausolf. As gardeners and farmers fear losing their jobs if palm trees die, they tend to overcompensate the amount of water.
The other problem, he said, is that the price of his mechanism still outweighed the cost of extra water for plants.
“People don’t care about the environment,” he said. “They care about money and don’t see the cost of saving the environment by saving water. They only know that water is cheap.”
In Abu Dhabi, irrigation of date palm trees uses about a third of the total groundwater used for crops, which has a serious effect on the sustainability of water resources.
“Some companies and people are not really thinking logically,” said Mr Mausolf. “People think they have more important things to worry about and without pressure from the Government, I don’t know how much change can be done.”
Mohammed Al Mazroui, an Emirati who owns a palm tree farm, said Mr Mausolf’s invention was a good idea.
“There is a problem with overwatering and technology like this could be very easy to use in places with lots of trees,” Mr Al Mazroui said.
A gardener for a large corporation in Abu Dhabi said he overwatered palm trees because he feared they would die.
“They are important to people,” he said. “If I overwater it is no problem. I make sure that the tree is getting water.
“The access to water is not a problem.”
nalwasmi@thenational.ae
