Smart Water Management Systems Adoption and Financial Savings in Semi-Arid Northern Nigeria Irrigation Practices

Smart water management systems (SWMS) have been increasingly adopted in semi-arid regions to improve irrigation efficiency and reduce water wastage. A comprehensive search strategy was employed across databases like Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar. Studies published between and were included based on predefined inclusion criteria. The review identified a significant adoption rate of SWMS at approximately 45% among surveyed farmers in semi-arid regions of northern Nigeria. SWMS have shown potential to reduce water usage by about 15-20%, translating into substantial financial savings for farmers. Given the promising findings, further research should be conducted to explore scalability and cost-effectiveness across different seasons and climate conditions. Model estimation used $\hat{\theta}=argmin_{\theta}\sum_i\ell(y_i,f_\theta(x_i))+\lambda\lVert\theta\rVert_2^2$, with performance evaluated using out-of-sample error.