Sensors’ Efficiency in Smart Management of the Environmental Resources

Considering the environmental challenges that exist over the world including water and food scarcity, climate changes, desertification, land degradation, drought, and salinity, it has become necessary to use modern technologies to manage and control natural resources to achieve optimum use and sustainability. These techniques include different types of sensors, which are used in qualitative and quantitative analysis of various agricultural activities including soil fertility and productivity evaluation. Moreover, the smart management of farms including intelligent control of irrigation and fertilization management can be done to achieve higher use efficiency of water and nutrients, to reduce soil pollution and salinization. Sensors are used in soil properties estimation as well as in assessing soil quality, suitability, capability, erosion, desertification, salinization, pollution, and degradation. There are many kinds of sensors used in agricultural activities including electrical, chemical, biological, and radiometric sensors. These sensors are ground-based, airborne, or spaceborne. Integration of the sensors and Internet of Things as well as machine learning and data analytics has proven high efficiency in precision agriculture. Although the high cost of these sensors can be utilized for agricultural management, they are time and cost-effective, eco-friendly, and non-laborious. However, these techniques are still empirical and need more experiments to be guaranteed. With the significant research findings of the application of sensors in agricultural management, such technologies are promising to be utilized as an alternative to the conventional methods of agricultural management.