SmartGardenWatering Project Page
(Updated Novermber 15, 2011).
November 15 update: we are developing an iPhone app to accompany SGW - will be released for summer 2011.
April 2011 update: the new SGW 2.0 was launched at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show by Arron Wood. Watch the video of the launch!
November 2010 update: this project is still very much al$postin1
ive. We have a new version that is about to be released for summer 2010. See the item below.
October 2009 update: we were also finalists in the National 2009 saveWater! awards, sponsored by Savewater, but didn't win that either! Details here.
April 2009 update: this project was a finalist in the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association. Winners were announce in Sydney on Mar 13, 2009 - we didn't win :(
2010/11 project update
An exciting feature of the new version of SGW is the ability to save your garden models online, and then invite others to explore and discuss them through Facebook. Alternatively, you can use a Google Maps interface to find gardens in your local area that others have modelled and search them, sort them, rate them and share them. Our current research is exploring this use of social networking to support behaviour change.
Other aspects of SGW are similar to the original version. It is an interactive online application that provides an irrigation schedule for your garden for each month of the year. The program takes into account factors such as climate zones, soils, mulches, slope of the ground and microclimate (sun and wind conditions). You can select plants from the comprehensive Burnley Plant Directory of 1500 plants. A water tank simulation allows you to evaluate the performance of various tank sizes.
The address is the same (although you launch from the Savewater site): SmartGardenWatering.org.au
About the 2009/10 project
This project will support the creation of online gardening communities to significantly improve water conservation in domestic garden water use. It will achieve this by creating a sophisticated web-based tool to allow people to model and share garden and water conservation information. At the heart of the tool will be the existing garden water demand and irrigation model based on significant horticultural research. This will be combined with the latest online community building Internet tools to enable domestic gardeners to form communities unconstrained by physical distance where gardeners can model, save, edit, locate, compare, discuss and their gardens in the context of water conservation.
This will become the next generation of our domestic garden water modelling tool – the web-based program (see this original version at http://original.smartgardenwatering.org.au/) released on 01 April 2009 (SGW1.0). Web 2.0 technologies now provides the opportunity to utilise the social networking capability of the web to allow the SmartGardenWatering tool to be used as an instrument of behavioural change in how water is used in home gardens. People will be able to save their garden models, explore other gardens using a ‘Google Maps’ style interface, and provide advice for other gardeners. They will also interact with real-time Bureau of Meterology data.
Our preparatory work indicates that gardening provides an ideal vehicle for building communities that can now be supported online amongst people with minimal computing skills. The social research supporting this project will:
- gather information on the current watering practices and technologies used by a sample of Melbourne gardeners;
- understand where and how these gardeners currently acquire and share knowledge about garden watering; and
- introduce the research participants to SGW1.0 – which allows gardeners to model their gardens, obtain a watering schedule, and model the performance of a water tank in their garden – in order to get feedback on how it is used and/or accepted (aesthetics, ease of use, relevance).
The results of the research project will then help to inform the design and development of SGW 2.0 – a more interactive software tool with social networking capabilities which will enable domestic gardeners to form communities unconstrained by physical distance, where gardeners can model, save, edit, locate, compare, and discuss ideas about sustainable and wise water use in their gardens.
The project is significant both in terms of its likely impact on water friendly practices and the creation of vibrant garden-centric communities. It will also produce a powerful community platform from which much educational material about garden watering can be distributed.