Using expert systems technology to increase agriculture production and water conservation

Abstract

Although there are many developed expert systems in the world, little consideration has been given to the impacts resulting from their use. There is a difference between the developed expert systems in the laboratories for research and demonstration and the expert systems that can be applied in the fields. The applied expert systems must cover the end users requirements and meet some other evaluation criteria. ESs are evaluated both in the laboratory and in the fields. In the laboratory evaluation, there is an evaluation methodology to guarantee that the ES can be used in the field. The field evaluation is achieved by applying field experiments. Those field experiments showed that fields managed by the ES are better than the control fields. In this paper, the evaluation criteria that guarantee the success of ESs deployed in the fields are presented. These evaluation criteria have been applied on three ES applications, namely: CITEX for citrus cultivation, CUPTEX for cucumber cultivation under plastic tunnel, and NEPER for wheat cultivation. Expert systems potentially have several different types or categories of impact relative to the applied domain. The field experiments are used to evaluate the economical and environmental impacts of the ES. The economical impact includes the cost, profit, and yield. The environmental impact includes the effect of using the ES on water and soil conservation, and also on decreasing the amount of pesticides used in the fields.