Skip to content
Research Article Open access CC BY 4.0

Economic and Environmental Evaluation of IoT-Based Smart Irrigation Systems for Rice Cultivation in South Korea

Young-Son Cho

Asian Research Journal of Agriculture · pp. 363–373 · Published 6 Sep 2025

10.9734/arja/2025/v18i3744

Abstract

Rice serves as a primary food source for more than half of the world’s population, but its production demands large amounts of water, raising concerns about food security. This study examines the impact of IoT-enabled smart irrigation systems (MIS) in South Korea, focusing on paddy field areas and rice yields across different provinces. Implementation of MIS led to a 20–50% reduction in water usage, up to an 88% decrease in labor requirements, and lower fuel and energy consumption, while boosting rice yields by around 39% and reducing the water footprint per unit of production by 29%. Despite these benefits, high initial costs and technical complexity may limit adoption among small-scale farmers. Overall, the results highlight the potential of MIS to enhance economic efficiency, environmental sustainability, and productivity, contributing to climate-smart and sustainable rice cultivation.

IoT-based smart irrigation systems food security water footprint environmental sustainability

Cited by 0

No indexed citations yet.

Article metrics

Real usage data collected on this platform.

13

Page views

0

PDF downloads

0

Outbound clicks

0

Citations

Views over time

Views by country

Approximate, from request IP at view time — not citizenship or institution. Countries with fewer than 5 views are grouped as "Other".

Traffic sources

Referring site, by host.

Views and downloads exclude known bots/crawlers. Citations combines this platform's own DOI-resolved index with each external source's own reported total — see Cited by above for individually listed citing works. Last refreshed 0 seconds ago.