=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3293/paper38
|storemode=property
|title=Introducing Kiwifruit Water Footprint into a Traceability IT System
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3293/paper38.pdf
|volume=Vol-3293
|authors=Ioannis L. Tsirogiannis,Penelope Baltzoi,Konstantina Fotia,Dimitris Salmas,George Pachoulas,Charalampos Karipidis,Spiridoula V. Margariti,Chrysostomos Stylios
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/haicta/TsirogiannisBFS22
}}
==Introducing Kiwifruit Water Footprint into a Traceability IT System==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3293/paper38.pdf
Introducing Kiwifruit Water Footprint into a Traceability IT
System
Ioannis L. Tsirogiannis 1, Penelope Baltzoi 1, Konstantina Fotia 1, Dimitris Salmas 2, George
Pachoulas 2, Charalampos Karipidis 1, Spiridoula V. Margariti 2 and Chrysostomos Stylios 2,3
1
University of Ioannina, Department of Agriculture, University Campus of Arta, Arta, GR47100, Greece
2
University of Ioannina, Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, University Campus of Arta, Arta,
GR47100, Greece
3
Industrial Systems Institute, Athena R.C. Platani, Patras, GR26504, Greece
Abstract
Efficient use of water resources is connected to sustainable agricultural practices. Water
Footprint (WF) has been largely employed for more than ten years as a useful tool for planning
efficient water and nutrient management strategies at various spatial levels. Greek kiwifruit
production is constantly growing especially during the last decade, and the plain of Arta (NW
Greece), is among the hotspots regarding kiwifruit culture in Greece. The irrigation water
requirements of the crop in that area are high, while fertilisers are usually provided to the crop
via fertigation methods. In this framework an innovative web application was developed in
collaboration with Kolios Fruit S.A., a major exporter of agricultural products, which is based
in Arta. The application is used to handle data during the full range of cultivation practices of
kiwifruit (pruning, irrigation, fertigation, plant protection, harvest etc.), along with data from
soil analysis, weather conditions, fruit quality analysis and yield. A component of the that
application calculates the WF. During the testing of the application the average cultivation WF
of kiwifruit at the plain of Arta was found equal to 335,47 m3 tn-1. The application provides to
farmers, agriculturalists, processors, traders, consumers etc., traceability information regarding
kiwifruit cropping practices as well as information regarding the WF of the fruits.
Keywords 1
Agricultural practices, efficient water use, environmental labeling
1. Introduction
As water scarcity is listed among the major global risks and agriculture is the most significant water user
in many countries, efficient use of water resources is connected to sustainable agricultural practices. Water
Footprint (WF), an index that accounts for the amount of water used along a part or the full supply chain of
a product, has been largely employed for more than ten years as a useful tool for planning efficient water
and nutrient management strategies at various spatial levels. Greek kiwifruit production is constantly
growing, especially during the last decade.
The 9,500 hectares of kiwifruit fields rank the country as the 3 rd top global producer. The plain of Arta
(NW Greece) is among the hotspots regarding kiwifruit culture in Greece. The irrigation water requirements
of the crop in that area are high, while fertilisers are usually provided to the crop via fertigation methods.
WF could connect water and cultivation inputs management of kiwifruit cultivation in a single index. In
this framework an innovative web application, which includes calculation of cultivation WF, was developed
by the University of Ioannina in collaboration with Kolios Fruit S.A., a major exporter of agricultural
Proceedings of HAICTA 2022, September 22–25, 2022, Athens, Greece
EMAIL: itsirog@uoi.gr (A. 1); pinelbalt@uoi.gr (A. 2); d_fotia@uoi.gr (A. 3); salmasdimitris@kic.uoi.gr (A. 4); pachoulas@kic.uoi.gr (A.
5); karipidi@uoi.gr (A. 6), smargar@uoi.gr (A. 7), stylios@isi.gr (A. 8)
ORCID: 0000-0001-9102-8372 (A. 1); 0000-0002-7355-9871 (A. 2); 0000-0003-1618-7781 (A. 3); 0000-0003-4647-4810 (A. 4); 0000-
0002-4135-7474 (A. 5); 0000-0001-6011-3873 (A. 6); 0000-0002-2014-1332 (A. 7); 0000-0002-2888-6515 (A. 8)
©️ 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
193
products, which is based in Arta. The application was tested for the case of kiwifruit cultivation in the plain
of Arta.
2. Description and Main Features of the Application
The web application is designed to handle data regarding the full range of cultivation practices of
kiwifruit (pruning, irrigation, fertigation, plant protection, harvest etc.), along with data from soil
analysis, weather conditions, fruit quality analysis and yield. The cultivation WF is calculated taking
into account the green, blue and grey components of the index. The application provides to farmers,
agriculturalists, processors, traders, consumers etc., traceability information regarding kiwifruit
cropping practices as well as information regarding the WF of the fruits.
The application is consisted by two main components: the data gathering part used for the
traceability of kiwi and the data mining used for generating various statistics regarding the kiwifruit
and the farms. In the first component, farmers, agriculturalists and traders are responsible for gathering
data from every stage of the traceability chain. The farmers and agriculturalists gather and store data
regarding their cultivation practices and their harvest through the application. Those data are stored in
the database through a Restful API service, and they are accessible by interesting parties (Figure 1).
To enhance the user experience, standard information such as commonly used fertilizers and plant
protection products are already stored in the database and are accessed via a simple dropdown menu
from the user. At the end of each harvest period agriculturalists perform chemical analysis on the
kiwifruit that determines the quality of the product. To complete the traceability chain of the kiwifruit,
traders are responsible for recording the shipment of the product. The traceability applications provide
the ability to the traders to quickly perform a forward trace recall in case of an emergency.
Figure 1: Data gathering and dissemination flow chart
194
In the second component, various elaborate algorithms are used to calculate the green, blue and grey
components of WF. To begin with, the application, on a daily basis, calculates and stores the crop
evapotraspiration (ETc) to the database by using crucial data from local agro-meteorological stations.
The calculation of ETc is made using the methodology proposed by Allen et al. [1]. The meteorological
data are gathered by accessing the API of Enhydris, a database system that stores meteorological data
from all around Europe [2]. It also provides an API to allow users to retrieve data from any
meteorological station stored in their database. An agro= meteorological station is assigned to each farm
stored in the database based on their proximity, calculated according to the Haversine formula. At the
end of the year, several algorithms are executed by the system to calculate the green, blue and grey
components of the WF (Figure 2). The WF was calculated according to the methodology proposed by
WFN [3].
Figure 2: Calculation procedure for Water Footprint
Those data are available to the farmers and also as a marketing tool to allow customers be aware
that the product and the applied cultivation techniques are eco-friendly. In addition to the WF through
the application, farmers can find statistics generated by data mining algorithms. Those statistics take
into consideration the cultivation practices performed in the farm, the location of the farm, and the
chemical results of the kiwifruit to create a correlation between them and provide suggestions to the
farmers to increase the efficiency and quality of their products.
3. Results Regarding Kiwifruit Water Footprint
During the test period of the application, it was found that the average cultivation WF of kiwifruit
in orchards supervised by Kolios Fruit S.A. in the Arta plain is equal to 335,47 m3 tn-1.
4. Acknowledgements
This research work is funded by the Operational Programme “Epirus” 2014-2020, under the project
“Modern kiwi quality assessment system, traceability of kiwi product and intelligent supply chain
management based on advanced IT applications ICT-Foodaware”, Co-financed by the European
Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and national funds.
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5. References
[1] R. G. Allen, L. S. Pereira, D. Raes, and M. Smith, Crop Evapotranspiration - Guidelines for
Computing Crop Water Requirements. FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper 56. FAO, Rome, Italy,
1998. doi: 10.1016/j.eja.2010.12.001.
[2] A. Christofides, S. Kozanis, G. Karavokiros, Y. Markonis, and A. Efstratiadis, Enhydris: A free
database system for the storage and management of hydrological and meteorological data,
European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2011, Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vienna,
8760, European Geosciences Union, 13 (2011).
[3] A.Y. Hoekstra, A.K. Chapagain, M.M. Aldaya, and M.M. Mekonnen, The Water Footprint
Assessment Manual. Setting the global standard (London, UK: Earthscan), 2011, pp.205.
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