Preface

Management of canal networks at the age of information technology. With the miniaturization of sensors and their decreasing costs, the paradigm of instrumentation of the built infrastructure and the environment has now been underway for several years, leading to numerous successful and sometimes spectacular realizations such as the instrumentation of the Golden Gate with wire- less sensors a few years ago. The convergence of communication, control and sensing on numerous platforms including multi-media platforms has enabled engineers to augment physical infrastructure systems with an information layer, capable of real- time monitoring, with particular success in the health monitoring community. This paradigm has reached a level of maturity, revealed by the emergence of numerous technologies usable to monitor the built infrastructure. Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are a perfect example of such infrastructure, which integrate sensing, communication and control. In the context of management of irrigation networks, the impact of this technology on the control of such systems has the potential of significantly improving efficiency of operations.