TerraMoist

Idea:

Agriculture consumes 70% of the world's freshwater, yet 40% of irrigation water is wasted applied too early, too late, or in the wrong amount. In Romania alone, 1.2 million hectares of irrigable land are managed by guesswork, and the precision systems that exist to fix this cost between €15,000 and €80,000 per farm, inaccessible to 99% of farmers.

TerraMoist is an AI-powered precision irrigation platform that tells farmers exactly how many millimetres of water each field needs, down to one decimal place and can trigger irrigation automatically through a €5 IoT device.

A farmer subscribes monthly, draws their field boundaries on an interactive map, and from that point we handle everything: we pull Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery from the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem, compute NDMI and SAR moisture scores via custom evalscripts, combine them with a 7-day weather forecast, and run the FAO-56 hydric water balance model. The output, for example, "Irrigate exactly 48.2mm" is delivered in under 30 seconds. It is then sent via MQTT to an ESP32 microcontroller in the field, which opens the solenoid valve automatically. The farmer simultaneously receives a push notification on their phone and smartwatch.

TerraMoist replaces expensive hardware with satellite intelligence and a monthly subscription, making precision irrigation accessible to every farm in the EU. Based on FAO 2022 data, this approach reduces water consumption by 30-40%, saving up to 875 million cubic metres of water per year across Romania's irrigable land.

EU space technologies:

TerraMoist is built entirely on EU Copernicus space infrastructure:

Sentinel-2 (MultiSpectral Instrument): We compute the Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI) using Band 8 (NIR) and Band 11 (SWIR) via custom evalscripts deployed on the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem (CDSE). NDMI gives us a per-parcel soil and vegetation moisture score updated every 5 days, with automatic cloud-free mosaicing over a ±10 day window to ensure clean data regardless of weather.

Sentinel-1 (SAR C-band): We use backscatter values to compute a SAR Moisture Score that penetrates cloud cover and provides moisture estimates even when optical imagery is unavailable. This makes our system operational year-round.

Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem (CDSE): All satellite data is accessed via the CDSE API using OGC-compliant evalscript calls. This eliminates any need for local satellite hardware or third-party data providers and the entire data pipeline runs on EU public space infrastructure.

The combination of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data gives TerraMoist a multi-source moisture signal that is more accurate than either sensor alone. When fused with real-time weather forecasts and the FAO-56 evapotranspiration model, this space data is transformed into an actionable, field-specific irrigation recommendation, directly closing the loop between satellite observation and physical irrigation on the ground.

Without Copernicus, TerraMoist would not exist. The free, open, and high-cadence nature of Sentinel data is what makes our subscription model economically viable and our precision agronomically trustworthy.

EU Space for Water:

TerraMoist directly addresses the challenge of "Securing equitable and efficient access to water."

The core inefficiency in agricultural water use is not a lack of water, but a lack of information. Farmers irrigate by habit, by schedule, or by intuition, with no objective measure of what each field actually needs. The result is systemic overuse: water applied where it is not needed, withheld where it is, and wasted at scale.

TerraMoist solves this by replacing guesswork with satellite-derived precision. Every irrigation recommendation we generate is grounded in real, field-specific data: the current moisture state of the soil, the evapotranspiration demand of the next 7 days, and the FAO-56 water balance model, the globally validated standard for irrigation scheduling. The output is not a range or an estimate. It is an exact value: "Irrigate 48.2mm." No more. No less.

This precision directly translates to water savings of 30–40% per farm, confirmed by FAO 2022 studies on precision irrigation. Across Romania's 1.2 million hectares of irrigable land, scaled adoption of this approach would save up to 875 million cubic metres of water per year, water that currently evaporates from fields that were irrigated too much, or is drawn from aquifers to compensate for fields that were irrigated too late.

Critically, TerraMoist makes this level of precision accessible to every farmer, not just large agribusinesses with €80,000 hardware budgets. Our monthly subscription model requires zero upfront investment and zero proprietary sensors. The only infrastructure needed is a €5 ESP32 microcontroller and an internet connection. This directly addresses the equity dimension of the challenge: precision water management, previously reserved for industrial-scale operations, becomes available to smallholders, cooperatives, and family farms across the EU.

Team:

Andrei-Alexandru Achim — Software Developer & Data Engineer

Andrei built the core satellite data pipeline, implementing the custom evalscripts on the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem and the FAO-56 water balance computation engine. He has previously won awards at national-level tech hackathons and brings deep expertise in backend systems and geospatial data processing.

Alexandru-Mihai Bîlă — Web Developer & Software Developer

National medalist in Mathematics and Physics. He has competed in multiple software development competitions, placing in the top tier at regional and national level. Winner of the NASA Space Settlement Design Award for the development of autonomous life-support and resource management systems for space stations — the same systems thinking that underpins TerraMoist's closed-loop irrigation model.

Tiberiu-Andrei Chirilă — Idea & Research Engineer

The originator of TerraMoist. Tiberiu identified the precision irrigation gap in Romanian agriculture and designed the overall system architecture. He also holds business hackathon awards from collaborations with Fortune 500 corporations, where he led product strategy and go-to-market planning.

Luca-Gabriel Constantinescu — Web Developer & Designer

Luca designed and implemented the frontend user experience: the map interface, dashboard, and mobile-responsive layout. His background combines technical development with product design, and he has won design challenges at hackathons organised in partnership with major tech corporations.

David-Ștefan Ghiorma — Software Developer & Research Engineer

Has a strong foundation in applied modelling. David led the integration of the weather API, the LSTM and XGBoost machine learning models, and the QAOA quantum optimisation layer. He has previously received recognition at science and engineering competitions.

Ioana-Alexandra Prunaru — Designer & Business Development

Ioana led the product branding, pitch design, and business model development for TerraMoist. She has a proven track record in business hackathons, winning competitions run in collaboration with major corporate partners, and brings strong skills in market analysis, user research, and strategic communication, bridging the gap between technical depth and investor-ready presentation.

Albert-Iulian Romaniuc — Data Engineer & Research Engineer

National medalist in Mathematics and Physics. Albert designed the data infrastructure, the NDMI time-series database, the per-parcel irrigation history system, and the MQTT-to-ESP32 IoT communication layer. He has received awards at hackathons focused on space technology and smart agriculture applications, and contributed to research work on satellite-based environmental monitoring.