AI for effective soil moisture management: Boosting agricultural water efficiency in India’s drylands

This project uses AI and satellite data to generate affordable, high-resolution soil moisture maps, unlocking a key insight in managing water for agriculture. By downscaling NASA’s coarse-resolution soil moisture data to smallholder field scale and validating it with on-the-ground sensors, collected in partnership with WELL Labs, we aim to deliver 50-meter maps every 6 days across India’s drylands. These maps will empower farmers to irrigate more precisely and evaluate which soil moisture conservation practices, like mulching or rainwater harvesting, actually work. In partnership with WELL Labs and grassroots NGOs, we’re building a scalable tool to conserve water, boost farm income, and guide billions of dollars in public and private investments toward what works.