Digital Water: Computing Tools, Technologies, and Trends

Highlights “Digital Water” is an emerging field, driven by advances in sensors, digital tools, AI, and ML models. The field leverages large datasets to understand water in natural, human, and agricultural-dominated ecosystems. The Journal of ASABE developed a special collection on “Digital Water” to highlight the emerging works in this field. This collection features various applications of sensors, digital tools, and models to address water issues. ABSTRACT. With the emergence of digital technologies, engineering solutions are increasingly incorporating sensors, telemetry, databases, cloud computing and cloud-based models, big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data-driven modeling. These tools enable faster, more reliable, targeted, and actionable decision-making. Water resources management is no exception to this digital revolution. In recognition of this trend and building on the success of “Digital Water: Resource Magazine” and a well-received technical session on Digital Water at the ASABE Annual International Meeting 2022, in Houston, Texas, the ASABE journal initiated a special collection on “Digital Water: Computing Tools, Technologies, and Trends.” The special collection was supported by the Natural Resources and Environmental Systems (NRES) community, the meeting organizers, and the lead authors. This initiative provided an opportunity for leading researchers to showcase their digital water-related work. Eleven unique manuscripts, covering diverse applications such as surface water, irrigation, and water quality, contributed to the collection by addressing various aspects of digital water. Of these, five manuscripts were submitted to and published in the Journal of Natural Resources and Agricultural Ecosystems, while the remaining six were submitted and published in the Journal of the ASABE. The collection features one review article and one research brief, while the rest of the publications are full research articles covering studies from nine states within the United States (US).