**Abstract**

The global consequences of climate change cannot be ignored. The agriculture industry, in particular, has been harmed, resulting in poor production as a result of floods and droughts. One in every three people in the world's arid and semi-arid regions lacks access to healthy food and safe drinking water. Despite the fact that irrigation development is increasing in most developing nations, it still falls short of meeting current food demand, much alone predicted need by 2050. To feed the future population while combating climate change, agricultural practices must be precise. Scarce resources such as water, land, and energy will need to be exploited more efficiently in order to produce more with less. Smart irrigation is shaping up to bring answers to these twenty-first-century concerns. This chapter discusses improvements in smart irrigation monitoring and management systems that may be used to address climate, food, and population issues. It includes an overview of smart irrigation, smart irrigation monitoring, and smart irrigation management, as well as challenges and prospects related to climate change and food security. Smart irrigation may boost water savings and agricultural production, thereby improving food security.

**Keywords:** smart irrigation, water use efficiency, climate change adaptation, precision water management

#### **1. Introduction**

The world presently faces challenges ranging from extreme effects of climate change i.e. droughts and floods, to a rising population [1]. This has a huge impact on the present and future food security. Presently, 1.3 billion people are residents in water-stressed areas of the world, rendering water for agricultural production insufficient as competition from other sectors of the economy increases [2]. In countries with significant amounts of fresh and groundwater resources, irrigation has substantially contributed to sustainable food production all year round [3]. Presently only 24.1% of the total agricultural area is under irrigation, yielding about 40% of the total world food and fiber. Despite the benefits of irrigation reported so far, it has been regarded as a sector that uses a lot of water depriving other sectors of the economy. The FAO state of the food report posits that of the 70% freshwater abstracted for irrigation, only 50% is beneficial to plants [4]. The pressure on freshwater and

groundwater resources due to the growing food and fiber demand will further exacerbate as agricultural production will need to expand by 1.7 times by 2050. This necessitates a 15% increase in freshwater withdrawals [3]. Agriculture will be required to re-allocate a fair share of the water abstracted to meet a 25–40% increase in future water demand from higher productive and employing sectors of the economy [5–7].

Given that irrigated agriculture has proven to deliver up to two-fold more food than rainfed agriculture [8], the demand for irrigation water will inevitably continue to increase as more land is secured for irrigation. Efficient land utilization with irrigation leads to crop diversification, which later buffers against climate variability. Climate change has already impacted agriculture to the extent that water for irrigation is becoming scarce in arid and semi-arid lands. Therefore, sustainable irrigation should aim at reducing water losses, meeting crop water requirements, and maintaining ecological flows in rivers and aquifers. However, improving water management in agriculture is typically constrained by inadequate policies, major institutional underperformance, lack of technology deployment, and financing limitations [9].

Sustainable smart irrigation is an essential step towards improving the state of food security and achieving sustainable development goal number 2. Smart irrigation ensures timely, real-time water application to the plant root zone, reducing losses associated with traditional irrigation systems like evaporation, seepage, and deep percolation [10]. With effective monitoring and control in smart irrigation, water, energy and labour are saved. As the notion of more crop per drop gains attention, smart irrigation is a potential climate change adaptation strategy and an effective way to ensure sustainable food supply all year round.
