Here is how citizens and scientists can join forces to collect information. The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) has developed a mobile weather station that runs only on open-source software and parts available locally in Sri Lanka. It costs just $750 – compared to traditional weather stations that come in at around $10,000.
The Lanka Rain Water Harvesting Forum has installed these mobile weather stations at a dozen schools in Sri Lanka, recruiting hundreds of students to join the weather data collection efforts.
The power of this data can save entire harvests – as rice farmers in Colombia can attest to. After scientists at CIAT analysed large sets of weather data, they advised rice farmers to delay planting their crops in the first two annual growing seasons due to adverse weather conditions. The 170 farmers who followed the advice avoided a staggering $3.6 million in losses.
Population pressure and increasing water competition in a changing climate require us to take stock of the availability and use of water across scales. Water availability not only influences farmers’ commercial prospects but also irrigation-related enterprises and agri-businesses. Greater water scarcity could jeopardize irrigation and agricultural markets while excessive water use can lead to declining ecosystems, water quality and soil health. IWMI advises development partners and the public and private sectors on all aspects of water resource availability and use through a variety of advanced modeling and remote-sensing products and tools, including 
The ability of farmers to engage in or expand irrigation depends on the prevailing socioeconomic, ecological and political contexts, which are often complex, non-linear and changeable. Overcoming systemic barriers to farmer-led irrigation development while taking advantage of existing opportunities 
A lack of affordable credit, particularly for women and resource-poor farmers, is one of the main barriers to expanding farmer-led irrigation in low- and middle-income countries. But 
Scaling farmer-led irrigation requires strengthening human capacity and knowledge exchange among all actors and stakeholders involved. IWMI takes an action research approach, working with national and international research institutions, governments, extension agents and public and private organizations to co-develop the scaling ecosystem and strengthen capacity to drive scaling networks and collective action. We support the