From Smart Irrigation to Nature-Positive Water Management in Australian Sugarcane: Irrigation Technologies, Nature Frameworks, and Integration Pathways

This narrative and conceptual review examines how irrigation management in Australian sugarcane can progress from practice-based efficiency improvement towards an integrated evidence system supporting productivity, water-quality improvement and nature-positive reporting. It reviews regional irrigation conditions, standard and best management practices, crop and water modelling, grower-facing scheduling, Internet of Things (IoT) monitoring and automation, remote sensing, forecast-informed irrigation and artificial intelligence. It then considers natural-capital, nature-positive and environmental-reporting frameworks relevant to reef-connected sugarcane landscapes. The review identifies a persistent gap between information generated by irrigation technologies and the credible, transparent and auditable indicators required for broader environmental reporting. A five-part integration pathway connects established components from farm monitoring and modelling, environmental-pressure estimation, supporting evidence, documented methods and defined reporting applications. Existing studies support individual components and several adjacent linkages; this review maps how they could operate as a whole system. Farm-scale technology outputs are treated as evidence of management actions or modelled pressure pathways rather than direct measurements of ecosystem condition. Smart irrigation is thereby positioned as an enabling component linking farm profitability, reduced pressure on soil and water assets, and more credible nature-positive water management in Australian sugarcane.