By Justin Moore
Eastern North Carolina farmers face threats from flooding, increased soil salinity and saltwater intrusion that destroy crops, endanger livestock and damage expensive farm equipment. To help address these challenges, researchers with NC State University's North Carolina Plant Sciences Initiative and East Carolina University are collaborating with data and AI leader SAS on a pilot project exploring affordable, field-ready agricultural sensor systems designed to deliver timely, data-driven insights to growers.
In just the last two years, weather events like Hurricane Helene and Tropical Storm Chantal have caused extensive crop losses for North Carolina farmers. Additionally, increased soil salinity, which can be driven by poor drainage, high evaporation or dry conditions, makes large swaths of land unusable for farming. Having even a small amount of additional time to prepare for flooding, or a better understanding of the extent of saltwater intrusion and salinity increases, can save significant money for an industry where profitability margins can be razor-thin.
But timely field data to confront these challenges has been elusive — until now. A groundbreaking pilot in Hyde County is joining NC State and ECU researchers with SAS experts to deploy affordable sensors measuring water depth, soil moisture and salinity in real time. This data, along with current and forecasted weather, will feed into a model, powered by SAS® Analytics for IoT, for identifying areas most likely to flood, helping farmers safeguard crops, equipment and livestock, manage drainage and mitigate risks from changing soil salinity.
Innovative collaborations bringing power of data to farmers
The flood resiliency project grew out of a presentation at the 2025 SAS Innovate conference about real-time flood prediction modeling in Cary, N.C. In attendance was NC State's Ag Analytics Platform Manager, Brad Lewis, who wondered how this technology, and an existing partnership with SAS, could help protect vulnerable farmland. Ciprian Popoviciu, director of the Center for IoT Engineering and Innovation at ECU, was already working on low-cost sensors with NC State's Andrea Gibbs, an Extension agriculture agent in Hyde County, making the county an ideal location for a pilot project.
Source : ncsu.edu