The meeting of ISO/TC 23/SC 18 on irrigation and drainage equipment and systems took place between June 9 and 13, 2025. The meeting was held in Hangzhou, China, at the invitation of the local delegation. Delegations from Israel (which holds the chair and secretariat), China, the United States, Brazil, and Spain attended in person. Delegations from Canada, India, and South Korea joined via teleconference. The Spanish delegation was composed by the Team of the National Center for Irrigation Technology (CENTER): Carlos Garrido (MAPA), Cristina Madurga (TRAGSA), David González (TRAGSA) and Alfonso Cervantes (TRAGSA). They were accompanied by Francisco Arribas (UNE) and Enrique Playán (RAMA group, EEAD-CSIC).
During the meeting, progress in the development of new standards and the updating of existing standards was discussed. Progress was made on standards for irrigation machines, for characterizing dripper clogging, for fertigation with organic fertilizers, and for irrigation heads for fertigation.
Spain presented its progress on Remote Monitoring and Control Systems for collective irrigation networks at the meeting. Spain has promoted a standard (ISO 21622) consisting of four parts. The second part (tests) was published in 2023 and the third part (interoperability) was published in 2024. Part 1 (General Considerations) will be published in the coming months. Part 4 (functionalities) is currently under review.
This ISO standard is paralleled by UNE 318002, which is being widely used (along with ISO standard 21622) to guide investments in telemetry and remote control of collective irrigation networks within the Recovery, Transition, and Resilience Plan (PRTR) in Spain. The standard is proving successful in terms of its business implementation (16 companies have adopted it) and in terms of protecting the interests of water users associations, by promoting interoperability between equipment from different manufacturers.
