# Connecting the drops: A methodological challenge for the deployment of ICTs in mediterranean irrigation systems

Kevin Daudin, Gilles Belaud, Crystele Leauthaud, Zhour Bouzidi, Caroline Lejars

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Kevin Daudin, Gilles Belaud, Crystele Leauthaud, Zhour Bouzidi, Caroline Lejars. Connecting the drops: A methodological challenge for the deployment of ICTs in mediterranean irrigation systems. Agricultural Water Management, 2025, 315, pp.109545. 10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109545. hal-05094939

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# Connecting the drops: A methodological challenge for the deployment of ICTs in mediterranean irrigation systems

Kevin Daudin<sup>a, *</sup>, Gilles Belaud<sup>a</sup>, Crystele Leauthaud<sup>a</sup>, Zhou Bouzidi<sup>b</sup>, Caroline Lejars<sup>a</sup>

## ARTICLE INFO

Handling Editor: J.E. Fernández

Keywords:

Collaborative research

Innovation diffusion

Science and Technology

Spatial information

Technological knowledge dynamics

Situated learning

## ABSTRACT

The vulnerability of irrigated systems in areas coping with water scarcity has boosted the demand for information and communication technologies (ICTs), e.g. tools and services derived from field sensors or satellite data. ICTs are promising tools to track and quantify water flows and transfers, yet their increased accessibility and production benefits does not often lead to their increased deployment beyond the group involved in the initial design and testing process. To support technological innovation scaling, an interdisciplinary approach and an original methodology are developed and implemented. The objective is to explore the dynamics of ICTs initiatives in irrigation systems and facilitate horizontal outreach. Technological emergence and diffusion is captured through in-depth analyses of information and collaboration processes operated by the technologies. Investigation into global and local datasets to map irrigation technical layouts at a regional scale shows a gap between representations of irrigation phenomenon, but used in combination these information sources can help characterize diffusion potential. Feedbacks from empirical works in a set of multistakeholder innovation platforms show that collaborative mechanisms during technological experiments can be diverse but remain crucial to empower irrigation communities. This methodological investigation fuels the debate on digital agriculture, and shows that there are alternative avenues for irrigation sustainable development through technology. Finally, pathways for information and knowledge circulation across actors, scales, and contexts are identified, highlighting researchers' role to collect, document, and share datasets and stories. Still, learning opportunities should not obscure the operational challenges towards a translocal network of ICTs initiatives for irrigation systems.

## 1. Introduction

In the Mediterranean region, low rainfall during the warm season hinders the agricultural production capacity, which historically has prompted the development of hydraulic infrastructures for water transfer and storage. Irrigation is an issue of bringing water where and when it is needed; as such it strongly depends on the physical context (soil, climate, topography) and on information on the water accessibility situation. As a human adaptation mechanism to water shortage, irrigation phenomenon is the continuous adjustment of techniques through experimentation and diffusion in agricultural communities (Ostrom, 1994). Today, the diversity of irrigation systems in the Mediterranean region mirrors the heterogeneity of situations in which physical and social dimensions of agricultural water management have coevolved at a local scale (Sanchis-Ibor et al., 2020). The drip systems are a recent

example of this mechanism: global water saving policies encourage diffusion (Venot et al., 2017) but their use generally requires adaptive processes with local materials and skills (Benouniche et al., 2014; Lejars and Venot, 2019). Important research efforts have been put to trace and analyze local adaptation of techniques and technologies for irrigation, but the spontaneous organization and unpredictable relations between social and technical elements have received too little attention to date.

The recent technological progresses, implemented for water accounting or quality control, now make it possible to track water flows and transfers in a wide range of spatial and temporal resolution. Today, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are very promising for irrigation communities, facilitating information exchange throughout the water supply chain (Levidow et al., 2014). Indeed, introduction of quantification tools derived from field sensors or satellite data demonstrated their added-value for farmers and water user

<footnote><sup>a</sup> University of Montpellier, UMR G-Eau, AgroParisTech, Brgm, Cirad, Inrae, Institut Agro-Montpellier, Ird, Montpellier, France</footnote>

<footnote><sup>b</sup> Moulay Ismail University, Meknes, Morocco</footnote>

<footnote>* Corresponding author.</footnote>

<footnote>E-mail address: kevindaudin@hotmail.fr (K. Daudin).</footnote>
associations (WUAs), establishing a new technical horizon with trans-
formation potential for agricultural water management (Aker et al.,
2016). For example, many ICT-based innovations are being developed to
monitor and model irrigation systems and potentially improve their
operation (Ferrández-Villena and Ruiz-Canales, 2017) and localization
(Bazzi et al., 2021). Hence, irrigation ICTs holds potential to increase
watering systems sustainability in areas coping with water scarcity, and
the demand for such information tools is boosted by the successive
droughts in the Mediterranean region. Yet, in most cases, the increasing
production and accessibility of ICTs does not directly lead to increased
deployment beyond the group involved in the initial technology design
and testing process.

Geography of sustainability transition research explores how to value, materialize, and support local scale initiatives by proposing ways to describe the development of technological innovation, from an initial experimental phase towards a reflection on how to scale impacts to contribute to systemic change (Hansen and Coenen, 2015). In the framework of transformative innovation at the local scale, the planned journeys of innovations, supposing that any useful technology naturally flows out, upscale and diffuse through market mechanisms (Rogers, 2010), is no longer relevant (Loorbach et al., 2020). Actually, a great deal of work is required to make small initiatives scalable and many methodological issues arise when addressing the diffusion of technological innovation. In the agriculture sector, until recently the scaling methods were quite empirical and based on the principle of finding what works in one space and trying to replicate it in other spaces (Wigboldus et al., 2016). To meet this challenge, some frameworks have been developed, for example the scaling readiness to enhance impacts of research for development (Sartas et al., 2020), and a research stream emerged in the recent years to understand scaling from both theoretical and practical standpoints (Schut et al., 2020). By defining scaling as a process that includes the design, testing and validation of concepts and methods, attention is directed to the deployment processes and the mechanisms to enhance the enabling conditions and actors' capacities.

Combining a sociotechnical perspective on spatially variegated pat-
terns of sustainable development with a scaling approach to innovation
for irrigation systems, the objective of this paper is to explore the
mechanisms and factors of ICTs initiatives in irrigation systems and to
facilitate horizontal technological outreach, or scaling out. The premise
is that technological innovation is an adaptive, socio-physical phe-
nomenon, which deployment can be captured through in-depth analyses
of information and communication processes. More specifically, the
approach tackles innovation practices through collaborative dynamics
(Daudin et al., 2021) and irrigation practices through geo-informatics
(Daudin et al., 2022).

An original scaling approach is proposed to explore the trans-
formation of a set of small initiatives into a translocal network of ICTs
initiatives for irrigation systems. A methodological framework is
implemented on a set of multistakeholder innovation platforms where
researchers tailored technological innovation to local needs and condi-
tions. Both innovation and irrigation practices are traced, analyzed, and
mapped based on feedbacks from empirical works in a Euro-
Mediterranean funded research project, and on investigation into
global and local datasets to map irrigation technical layouts at a regional
scale, respectively. The results show that the methodology successfully
tackles regional challenges of information and communication tech-
nologies in irrigation systems. Indeed, combining global mapping with
ground truth information can help characterize irrigation practices more
finely, and tracing and illustrating innovation dynamics across cases and
contexts can help connect technological experimentations. The meth-
odological investigation fuels the debate on digital agriculture and its
deployments, and shows that there are alternative avenues for irrigation
sustainable development through technology. Instead of viewing inno-
vation in irrigation as a performative activity, the criteria used to discuss
the emergence and diffusion of ICTs are knowledge circulation and in-
formation sharing. By exploring ways to effectively support the

connection of small initiatives, the approach might also contribute to
increasing their accountability and scaling-out their impacts.

## 2. Research approach

An interdisciplinary approach spanning physical and social sciences is developed to connect the drops of technological innovation experiments. While the production and transmission of technological knowledge has received worldwide attention from researchers of various disciplines, the approach offers to rethink information transmission by complementing the unidirectional approach of coded units – information as data (Shannon, 1948) – with the cyclical approach of experienced events – information as historical configuration (Clancey, 1997). Rather than opposing approaches, the idea is to combine perspectives and to emphasize learning opportunities.

2.1. *Innovation processes*

Innovation—broadly defined as the introduction of novelty—is generally associated with the number of users impacted and its economic profitability. In recent years, however, the focus has shifted to processes that facilitate exchanges between designers and users, so the innovation scope includes tried and tested inventions that meet users' needs. First, different scientific concepts have been developed to understand innovation emergence, including sociotechnical networks (Akrich et al., 1988) and technological innovation systems (Hekkert et al., 2007). The latter two recognize the importance of technological mediation of social relations and the social nature of all technological entities. However, social and organizational changes take shape and evolve during the course of any project and a high level of aggregation limits the understanding of micro-adjustments processes (Martin-Scholz et al., 2013; Schot and Steinmueller, 2018). Second, diffusion of innovations theories analyze spatiotemporal propagation of novelties with a focus on the appearance conditions and the spatial diffusion components and forms (Hägerstrand, 1973; Saint-Julien, 1985). However, computational logics generally requires a detailed geographical description and some complex calculation procedures, so diffusion processes are generally studied in isolation of one another. Hence, diffusion theories are conducive to a certain extent of case study fragmentation. Moreover, innovation networks partially influence their environment, while unintended consequences or random events may influence the course of the process (Klerkx et al., 2010).

While previous frameworks are helpful in identifying fundamental
features of innovation emergence and diffusion, they open ways to study
innovation scaling with an information and collaboration perspective:
information exchange through technologies and technological knowl-
edge circulation through collaboration. Given that scaling has its own
dynamics and involves continuous fine-tuning, the observation of
change processes are to be traced in real time, during the development
process. Hence, the approach proposed is more akin to the chain-linked
model of innovation (Kline and Rosenberg, 1986): the chain-link notion
necessarily includes specific dynamics and the succession of causes and
effects that leads, or not, to the successful emergence and spreading of
innovation.

2.2. *Technological knowledge circulation*

To connect the drops of ICTs initiatives is to understand what makes
local initiatives successful: scaling is studied in its collaborative
dimension to understand how social relations impact technological
emergence and spreading. Recent methodological development for
cross-case analysis of collaborative phenomena (Cockburn et al., 2020;
Schoon et al., 2021) are adjusted to grasp innovation dynamics in a set of
case studies. Since patterns of interventions are diverse, original ways to
synthesize results are designed with the goal of identifying a illustrative
archetypes of collaboration (Oberlack et al., 2019). For example,
drawings can be used to share ideas, convey stories, and explain mechanisms about a multifaceted object of study, complementing other forms of communication. In this respect, anthropology is useful to identify disparities among case studies and propose cross-interpretation of diverse innovation pathways. Because the nature of the technology binds the research and development process, the processing of information encapsulated by the technology influences learning among stakeholders (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995). Hence, it is assumed that collaborative pattern mirror knowledge amplification mechanisms: technological knowledge diffusion fundamentally depends on information processes and communication channels (Arrow, 1969). In this regard, the investigation concerns technologies to improve irrigation practices, spanning monitoring network, models and equipment.

## 2.3. Information exchange across scales

Then, to connect the drops of ICTs initiatives one needs to be able to map as finely as possible irrigation practices across the Mediterranean region: scaling is studied in its spatial dimension to assess ICTs diffusion. To assess where irrigation technologies could be useful, it is assumed that the physical patterns of irrigation system constrain the spreading potential: technical characteristics of irrigated areas define the maximal spatial deployment domains of ICTs. Agricultural landscapes are rapidly evolving and irrigation practices are based on a diversity of hydraulic development pathways, making irrigation phenomenon unique at the local scale. Besides recent achievements in mapping technologies via geographic information systems and remote sensing (Meier et al., 2018a), irrigation practices are difficult to trace and analyze (Venot et al., 2021). It results in outstanding uncertainties in irrigation area estimations at a global to regional scale, which further prevents from understanding the hydrological cycle dynamics that prevail in agricultural areas (McDermid et al., 2023). Hence, understanding how global open databases connect with local conditions requires to look at how information exchanges through technologies are socially structured. In this respect, “socio-informatics”—midway between earth and social sciences—helps tackle the inter-operability, accessibility and governance issue of information circuits. The investigation concerns methods, indicators, and technologies to map irrigation practices, spanning global databases and operational information.

# 3. Material and methods

In this section, a research methodology is developed to explore the dynamics of ICTs initiatives, and facilitate scaling out, based on a set of multistakeholder innovation platforms rooted in the Mediterranean irrigation science community.

## 3.1. The HubIS project

The HubIS project<fnref n="1" /> (2020–2024) was a multisite research and intervention initiative to demonstrate innovative solutions for irrigation systems in the Mediterranean region (Fig. 1). The premise of the project is that to enhance the visibility and affordability of ICTs and take advantage of the new opportunities offered by technologies, it is crucial to set up collaborative practices with local stakeholders. Based on a bottom-up participatory action research framework for problem identification and solution design, the project focused on the design and diffusion of cutting-edge technologies to improve irrigation practices at individual and collective levels. The participatory design of tailor-made decision support systems was implemented via user-led experiments in a series of study sites (called “irrigation FabLabs”). The eight study sites and the ICT innovation are presented in Table 1 and a detailed description of HubIS innovation basket is available in

**Supplementary Material S1.** All innovations were not derived from the project; some were already in their development or diffusion phases at the outset of HubIS so that, in those cases, participation was mostly focused on diffusion rather than on co-design.

Each innovation process actually builds on various types of technical developments (equipment, procedure, software, webservice). Box 1 presents two examples of ICTs innovation to track water at different scales in the French case study: low-cost field sensors for farmers and remote sensing products for Water User Associations. To better circumscribe ICT-based innovations developed in the HubIS project, a typology is proposed in Table 2. Each category of ICT innovation actually requires, for its evaluation, local information about irrigation practices. Hence, two or more ICTs can be combined to gain insight into innovation effectiveness. For example, calibration of remote-sensing products requires the collection of information on water flows, which can be obtained through network sensors and agronomic modeling.

## 3.2. Observation and analysis schemes

To assess how and where (HubIS) ICTs innovation can be useful, the methodology focuses on the mechanisms of collaborative processes as well as on the spatial distribution of hydraulic infrastructures. The methodological objective is to capture the knowledge dynamics and the information circuits for ICTs diffusion in irrigation systems. Different information processing methods were used, with the most important involving categorization, composition, spatial distribution and visual representation.

### 3.2.1. Collaborative patterns of technological interventions

One semi-directive interview was conducted with each of the HubIS study-site representatives (except one) during the third year of the project. Since the focus was on collaborative patterns of experiments where teams of researchers and local practitioners tested new irrigation management technologies, the interviews objective were twofold: 1) to characterize the learning process from the researchers' perspective, their view of the innovation process and strategy to adapt to local constraints; 2) to track the sequences of events and processes, and explain the multifaceted technological phenomenon. The investigation template is outlined in Supplementary Material S2. To spur discussion, researchers were invited to contextualize and historicize their answers, giving the social and institutional background of their intervention. Then, researchers were asked to describe the innovation processes while adopting a reflexive stance on their role in actors' networks.

The seven interviews were transcribed and a qualitative content analysis was performed to grasp innovation narratives. The information about collaborative processes in multistakeholder innovation platforms was structured into process-based narratives by the differentiation between context, mechanism and outcome variables (Cockburn et al., 2020; Schoon et al., 2021). Innovation dynamics were grasped through the practices via which researchers leverage ideas, materials and other actors to tailor the technology to local needs: attention was paid to contingency and transformative relationships between technology and the social environment. Then, each collaborative situation was converted into a graphic representation based on a semiology inspired by the TerraForma project (Aït-Touati et al., 2023). Acknowledging that pattern representation is a subjective way to connect stories with images, places and relationships, the representation of a set of collaborative dynamics with the same graphic semiology is proposed in order to note similarities and differences. Interpretative drawings were composed by rearranging the separate elements with a focus on the spatial footprint of the innovation process and a color code to differentiate developers (researchers) from users (farmers, managers). While this step is necessarily subjective, the drawing of collaborative mechanisms was driven by the intention to facilitate communication of a set of innovative pathways and make the complexity of collaborative situations accessible. Specific attention was paid to the succession of causes

<footnote n="1">¹ https://prima-hubis.org/</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1. Locations of HubIS research teams and study sites in the Mediterranean Basin. Note that the national borders illustrated in the GADM database do not account for territorial disputes.</figcaption></figure>

<table><caption>**Table 1**
The different case studies in the HubIS project.</caption><thead><tr><td>Site</td><td>Irrigation context</td><td>Local issue</td><td>Research institution</td><td>ICT innovation</td><td>Reference</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Larissa plain, Tavropos Thessaly, Greece</td><td>Main agricultural area of the country, various crops (wheat, barley, maize, etc.), irrigated by groundwater resources</td><td>Groundwater levels decline while irrigation water demand increase</td><td>University of Thessaly (UTH)</td><td>Satellite imagery for water-related indices mapping</td><td>(Dercas et al., 2024)</td></tr><tr><td>Crau plain, France</td><td>Extensive high-quality hay production fed by gravity irrigation with interbasin water transfers</td><td>Multifunctionality of the hydraulic network, balance between water application and agricultural labor</td><td>Institut Agro Montpellier (IAM)</td><td>Wireless water sensor to detect water and connected water control structure</td><td>(Vandome et al., 2024), this special issue</td></tr><tr><td>Guardiana watershed, Lucefecit, Portugal</td><td>Maize, olive orchards, vineyards, pastures and cereals irrigated with collective pipe networks (sprinkler and drip)</td><td>High production costs due to electricity consumption, recurrent water shortage and heterogeneous efficiencies</td><td>Instituto Superior de Agronomía (ISA)</td><td>Water distribution network optimization procedures and guidelines</td><td>(Cameira et al., 2025, 2024), this special issue</td></tr><tr><td>Haouaria plain, Cap Bon, Tunisia</td><td>Vegetables, field crops and orchards with groundwater irrigation (drip and sprinkler)</td><td>Groundwater levels decline with subsequent salinization</td><td>Institut National de Recherches en Génie Rural, Eaux et Forêts (INGREF)</td><td>Wireless water sensor to monitor soil moisture</td><td>(Vandome et al., 2023)</td></tr><tr><td>Palos de la Frontera, Huelva, Spain</td><td>Greenhouses devoted to intensive production of high value berries, ground and surface water (drip irrigation)</td><td>Sandy soils, heterogeneous irrigation performance, environmental impacts</td><td>Instituto Andaluz de Investigación y Formación Agraria, Pesquera, Alimentaria y de la Producción Ecológica (IFAPA)</td><td>Smartphone application for irrigation scheduling (berry crops)</td><td>(Gavilan et al., 2024), this special issue</td></tr><tr><td>Gharb plain, Morocco</td><td>Changes in cropping systems irrigated with collective channel networks and pressurized devices</td><td>Low performance drip irrigation (adaptation of the collective network initially designed for sprinklers)</td><td>Institut Agronomique et Vétérinaire Hassan-II (IAV)</td><td>Smart irrigation device combining ground sensors and satellite images</td><td>(Kettani et al., in press), this special issue</td></tr><tr><td>Ghardaia and El Oued, Algeria</td><td>Sahara region with horticultural crops irrigated by groundwater resources</td><td>Low irrigation performance (over-irrigation)</td><td>Centre universitaire de Tipaza (TUC)</td><td>Equipment for water application (artisanal pivot)</td><td>(Ould Rebai et al., 2024), this special issue</td></tr><tr><td>Genil-Cabra, Guadalquivir basin, Spain</td><td>Guadalquivir valley with olive trees, citrus, field crops and vegetables irrigated with surface water (drip, sprinkler and furrow)</td><td>Low profitability due to electricity costs, recurrent water shortages, heterogeneous performances</td><td>Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)</td><td>Return flow alarms (downstream observations)</td><td>(Cuadrado-Alarcon et al., 2024)</td></tr></tbody></table>

and effects that leads, or not, to the successful collaboration between designers and users of innovation.

Finally, the dynamic theory of knowledge is used to characterize interaction patterns between tacit (experience, know-how) and explicit (information, data) forms of knowledge during HubIS innovation processes. Four conversions processes were previously identified (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995) – namely socialization or tacit knowledge sharing, externalization or converting tacit into explicit, combination of explicit knowledge, and internalization or converting observations into tacit knowledge – and related to amplification mechanisms from individual knowledge to institutional capability (Roux et al., 2006). Hence, innovation narratives and the social patterns of HubIS interventions were finally associated to technological knowledge mechanisms, with a specific attention to the processing of information operated by the technologies.

### 3.2.2. Spatial patterns of irrigated areas

Scanning of open databases and reviewing the regional state of current knowledge were the first steps to picture hydraulic infrastructures and understand irrigation practices in the Mediterranean region. The search was implemented gradually and iteratively, based on the usefulness of the information to serve the description activity. On the one hand, the scan of open databases was based on: i) the assumed capacity of the variable to serve as a proxy for the description of irrigation systems, and ii) the relevance of available data (coverage, resolution, relevance for technological diffusion). Hence, global scale, open-source and fine-resolution datasets were favored to ensure contextual information homogeneity and combination in a geographic information system software (Qgis). On the other hand, the scientific literature about irrigation in the Mediterranean region was browsed (snowballing), especially concerning irrigated crops, irrigation performance, and
Box 1

ICTs innovation for irrigation systems, an outlook from the HubIS project.

Low cost sensors for on-farm irrigation scheduling have been tested in an experimental farm in the Semi-arid Crau Plain, Southeast France. The issue was to develop technical solutions to find a balance between water application volumes and agricultural labor (Vandôme et al., 2024). The development and evaluation of water level sensors was achieved involving end users, with the aim to enable them to maintain and develop the sensors. The latter proved useful to improve water accounting (information on the duration of irrigation events) and reduce labor thanks to the pairing of the sensors with a telecom system (text message when water reaches a given length of the plot). Researchers proposed manufacturing workshops to start dissemination outside the experimental farm. Discussions with farmers also helped them adapt the sensors to their needs. Such co-design of low-tech solutions, as in Spain (Gavilan et al., 2024) or Tunisia (Vandôme et al., 2023), opens up new perspectives for decision support tools accessible to users with low financial capacities, generally unattainable with the usual commercial solutions.

Second, the potentiality of using satellite imagery to support irrigation practices has been tested over the French pilot site. Temporal series of Sentinel-2 images over 2021, 2022 and 2023 hay growing seasons have been analyzed by a service provider, TerraNIS, in order to monitor vegetation development over intensely irrigated grassland plots. Potential local needs and useful indicators – derived from satellite imagery or from in-situ measurements and observations – have been first defined with experts. Based on these inputs, a dashboard has been developed and showcased during an online workshop with potential end-users (Oct–2023). Discussions focused on indicators choice and on the usefulness of such dashboard. First, the NDVI indicator has been explicated in a very coarse way to facilitate discussions (“although it cannot be directly linked to yield without calibration and modelling, it is sufficient to identify trends in hay plots”, a researcher). Second, for WUA managers looking at a detailed knowledge of actually irrigated plots to adapt water spatial distribution to restrictions, the dashboard appeared inherently limited because water flows cannot be captured by satellite images. Still, hay farmers representatives presented other needs that could be met by such dashboard, for example threshold alerts of spatial heterogeneity in hay flora or notifications of abnormal evolution compared to previous year.

adaptations to global change.

The main global maps of irrigated areas (Meier et al., 2018b; Siebert et al., 2013; Teluguntla et al., 2023) were analyzed and downscaled to the Mediterranean region. Specific attention was dedicated to the methodological scheme for the map elaboration, and an inter-comparison analysis was achieved to better grasp the effect of information processing methods on the final product. To determine whether global datasets are detailed enough to be informative at a finer scale, global maps of irrigated areas were then compared with grounded information about irrigation schemes and practices gathered from the HubIS study sites (operational data and maps). Note that this attempt to connect global maps of irrigated areas with ground truth data about irrigation networks is necessarily fraught with uncertainties: rather than developing an indicator, the intention is to show the value, and reveal the challenges, of information sources combination.

4. Results

4.1. Knowledge about technological intervention

4.1.1. Innovation narratives

The innovation stories from HubIS researchers' interviews were manually structured into context, mechanisms and outcome categories. Detailed results are presented in Supplementary Material S6. Note that HubIS project researchers were not systematically the developers in each case study, but they were all in a position of providing precious

insight on the innovation dynamics.

Rather than having shared strategies, each team developed and implemented, or not, specific innovations with the aim of rooting them in the local contextual conditions while not being isolated from global trends. Hence, results present archetypal stories about how researchers and stakeholders have collaborated to introduce and use ICTs and change irrigation practices. Participation took various forms, from interviews to get in touch with local problems and implement analytical grids like performance assessment or agrarian diagnostics, to demonstration workshops to present how the technologies work and user participation in the design and evaluation process of technologies. While fully participatory processes were not possible in each site, all research teams made iterative adjustments and adapted their intervention strategies along the innovation processes to support technological adoption and strengthen the capacity of the irrigation community.

Storylines highlight the usefulness of discussion and workshops with stakeholders at the different stages of the innovation process (startup, adaptation, expansion), and how fresh insight may sometimes change the trajectory of this process over time. For example, during the adaptation phase of energy-saving technologies in Lucefacit, ISA developed an application based on WUA technicians' problems with ground data collection and storage. New insight may also emerge from discussions between researchers, e.g. IAV in Morocco, inspired by IAM in France, decided to develop low-cost sensors before realizing that soil-moisture measurements were not the main concern of farmers. Moreover, insight may be gained through long-term research cooperation between

<table><caption>**Table 2**

Categorization of ICTs developed in the HubIS innovation sites.</caption><thead><tr><td>ICT innovation</td><td>Information processing tools</td><td>Targeted end-users</td><td>Potential benefits</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Remote-sensing, earth observation</td><td>Transformation of remote sensing spatial data (UAV, EO images) into indicators</td><td>Manager, engineer, decision-maker</td><td>Crops and irrigation planning (ex-post evaluation)</td></tr><tr><td>Sensor-based with notification and/or automation</td><td>Recording signals collected by ground sensors for monitoring bio-physical processes, direct reading or automated data transmission</td><td>Farmer, technician, engineer</td><td>Irrigation practices improvement</td></tr><tr><td>Monitoring network with analysis procedure</td><td>Automated collection of observations and provision of simulated data through web services (spreadsheet, smartphone application, website)</td><td>Farmer, technician, engineer</td><td>Irrigation practices follow-up and irrigation scheduling</td></tr><tr><td>Modeling tools for prospective assessment</td><td>Quantitative representation and conversion of biophysical processes into operational instruments</td><td>Manager, engineer, decision-maker</td><td>Irrigation scheduling</td></tr><tr><td>Equipment for water control</td><td>Technical guidelines based on hands-on perspective</td><td>Farmer, technician</td><td>Irrigation practices improvement</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><caption>**Table 3**
Social patterns of HubIS interventions (color codes: blue = research teams, orange = other actors).</caption><thead><tr><th>Collaborative pattern</th><th>Explanation</th><th>Quotes from researchers' interviews</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td></td><td>Landing in field observations and process-based modeling (downward blue arrow), searching for partners, test and validate the results (orange circle), and take-off towards further improvements (upward blue arrow)</td><td>"Farmers don't follow the instructions"<br>"We have economically good results, because this is the main argument for the farmers";<br>"We communicate very easily with the young generation. They understand the technologies, they understand the process, and they try to convince their fathers as well"</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Collaborative framework already established with local stakeholders (blue filled circle), some development achieved in HubIS (fabrication and demonstration workshops, blue arrows), but questions remain: on how to continue developments, maintain the services and scale-out (orange arrows)</td><td>"They know us, and this trust bond makes it easier to implement new projects"<br>"I think that if we didn't have these manufacturing workshops, the mistrust would have continued to prevail"<br>"Don't mess up the first demonstration otherwise you will ruin the rest of the process"<br>"I feel we haven't reached 100% autonomy for farmers. It takes time"</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Landing in a new geographical area and setting up a participatory process (blue arrow on the blue circle), other problems identified over the course of the intervention (blue arrows expanding from the blue circle) as many collaborative opportunities emerge (orange filled circle)</td><td>"Technicians know the network perfectly, it is in their minds: by just hearing the sound of water they know that another pump has been activated"</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Collaboration started 10 years ago with a small investment (small blue circle, blue arrows), incremental progress and role of consultants to provide extension services (orange circle and arrow), researchers in the role of extension agents (blue filled circle and mixed colored arrow)</td><td>"Large producers have time and resources (technicians) to innovate compared to small farmers"<br>"Farmers will never become irrigation experts, watering is just a part of their job"<br>"When you leave they will feel a little helpless and in this situation they return to their initial situation"</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Many ideas (blue arrows) but no development because of a lack of support for collaboration (orange rectangle), difficulties in establishing the innovation platform even though it was previously achieved (blue circle inside the orange rectangle)</td><td>"Before he worked at WUA and it was easy to share data, he facilitated interactions; but he stopped working there..."<br>"If a farmer says it works and is satisfied, it will spread"</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Back and forth movements between actors, places (territories) and researchers: innovation from Oued Souf to Ghardaia (orange circle and rectangle), researchers from Ghardaia to Oued Souf (blue arrow)</td><td>"In Ghardaia, micro-pivot irrigation is viewed as a black box, and it has not been possible to imitate and reproduce it, even though some of the more flexible parts are easy to readapt and change"</td></tr></tbody></table>

research teams and their associated laboratories. For example, an IAM intervention in Tunisia was favored by prior relationships and collaboration of other French researchers with INRGREF. The same companioning pattern occurred in Algeria, i.e. French researchers supported discussions on how to adapt their interventions on the basis of insight gained from interviews with local farmers. Note other connections between teams occurred during the project, for example the validation of EO-technics for evapotranspiration estimation with three documented areas (Greece, Portugal and France).

Several stories concern on-farm experimentation, e.g. scientists that conduct tests directly in the field, for instance soil moisture measurements in Greece and Tunisia or water-level detection in France. These collaborative settings may be hard to implement because farmers must be involved and researchers need to be physically present to oversee the trials. However, once set up, on-farm experiments have proven to be vital for the development of alternative innovation pathways (Lacoste et al., 2021). The stories also show that digital technologies may serve as learning catalysts or enablers by facilitating the collection of large amounts of data, making visible phenomena not captured otherwise. For example, the measurement of return flows by CSIC enabled farmers to detect when irrigation volumes were too high and change their practices accordingly—so this was a gradual learning process.

Finally, while ICTs can be tailored to meet specific requirements and local contexts in which they are to be implemented, the stories show that in practice it is complicated for researchers to sustain long-term collaboration with local farmers. The IFAPA team mentioned a “lack of recognition of technology transfer operations and of funding for extension initiatives”, whereas INRGREF was unable to continue the intervention because extension was not within its purview. Indeed, while technological development is in line within research objectives and hence available funding, replication processes are not.

### 4.1.2. Drawings of collaborative patterns

The interpretative transformation of different collaborative situations into traces and diagrams aims to put experience into shape. Previous narratives were interpreted, or translated, into graphical patterns (Table 3). Based on a spatial layout, simple forms were used to draw the collaborative patterns and determine how they were partly generated by the material dimension. Note there are no standards for validating architectures (Oberlack et al., 2019). Moreover, the graphic semiology proposed in Table 3 is not intended to be universal: the representations are objects to be commented on, deconstructed and augmented.

Table 3 allows for a quick assessment of the collaborative processes that unfolded during the actual introduction of a technology in society. While based on the same approach from the HubIS project, innovation collaborative pathways are very heterogeneous and highlight the various ways researchers adapted their intervention strategies and how stakeholders were facilitating or limiting innovation dynamics. While useful for communication of alternative technological development model, the collaborative patterns are not analytical tools.

### 4.1.3. Knowledge amplification mechanisms

To analyze the knowledge circulation, experiences with ICTs in HubIS case studies were associated to technological mechanisms based on an information and communication perspective. Table 4 presents the entry point for HubIS researchers, the work achieved for diffusion, and the association with technological knowledge amplification mechanisms (Roux et al., 2006). Sites sharing the same knowledge dynamics during researchers' interventions with farmers and WUA were grouped. Indeed, even if collaborative modalities are different, knowledge amplification mechanisms can be similar because the nature of the technology involved frames the intervention and diffusion processes.

First, Portugal is where the participatory processes were the most
<table><caption>**Table 4**
HubIS technological intervention processes.</caption><thead><tr><th>Site</th><th>Technological emergence</th><th>ICT diffusion</th><th>Amplification mechanism</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Portugal<br>Lucefecit</td><td>Specifying the needs, community learning about resource uses, organizational adoption</td><td>Diffusion of practical tools and local empowerment</td><td>From externalization (tacit into explicit knowledge) to combination of explicit knowledge</td></tr><tr><td>Greece<br>Thessaly<br>Spain<br>Huelva</td><td>Information collection, processing and calibration</td><td>Individual learning and collective training, conversion of observations into supportive tools</td><td>From combination of explicit knowledge to internalization of knowledge into know-how</td></tr><tr><td>France Crau<br>Tunisia Cap<br>Bon</td><td>Individual learning by doing, technology sharing based on demonstrative interactions</td><td>Community adoption, self-organization</td><td>From internalization of knowledge into know-how to socialization by sharing tacit knowledge</td></tr><tr><td>Morocco<br>Gharb</td><td>From various information sources to practical knowledge application</td><td></td><td>A combination of explicit knowledge</td></tr><tr><td>Algeria<br>Ghardaia</td><td>From community adoption to organizational adoption and institutional capability</td><td></td><td>An externalization of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge</td></tr></tbody></table>

useful: sourcing innovation directly from farmers by supporting their problem-solving processes directly placed the researchers in an externalization position. After a development phase, the research team strives to transform the ICTs into practical tools. Greece and Spain (Huelva) initially started with a combination process (developing new ICTs) and end up having to do more collective training (users' internalization of the technological knowledge for a reuse purpose). In France and Tunisia, the patterns were very similar because of the involvement of the same research team at both sites. The processes started with joint internalization by developers and users of the emerging technology, and ended with a call for community adoption and self-organization. Finally, in Morocco and Algeria, there was not sufficient progress during the project to identify the circulation between interaction patterns, but the research teams both gained reflexivity about their intervention frameworks.

## 4.2. Information about irrigation practices

### 4.2.1. Physical characteristics of irrigation systems

In the Mediterranean region, interbasin transfer projects have been widely implemented and tube wells pepper the landscape. Sprinkler and drip systems are implemented on over half of the irrigated area (Sanchis-Ibor et al., 2020). In practice, this situation accounts for an array of varied waterscapes, very dynamic and responsive to contextual change, but irrigation systems have only been roughly described. Indeed, no detailed mapping of irrigation infrastructures in the Mediterranean region (canals, pipes, boreholes, reservoirs, etc.) was found in existing global geographical databases. Moreover, to our knowledge no detailed analyses to date have focused on the spatial characterization of irrigation systems at the Mediterranean Basin scale (for example water application by sprinkler, drip or gravity). A list of relevant and usable global and regional datasets is provided in Supplementary Material S3, and a synthesis of irrigation practices from the literature review is available in Supplementary Material S4.

### 4.2.2. Spatial distribution of irrigated areas

Several global maps of irrigated areas are available in the literature (Supplementary Material S5), all of which combine different datasets and methods to represent irrigated areas for a given timeline. First, census-based statistics help define total areas in the spatial statistical units, but these statistical datasets have many shortcomings (misreporting and data quality variability, resolution differences, data gaps) and tend to overlook technical infrastructures and their spatial organization (Thenkabail et al., 2009). Second, geospatial information is helpful for attributing statistical data to agricultural and “other” land use classifications. Indeed, irrigated areas are still a challenge for land use classifications and the irrigation status is often hard to assess (Salmon et al., 2015). Third, remote sensing data can be used either to determine the spatial distribution of inventory statistics or to detect changes in land cover directly. The methods have matured over the

years, with a consequent increase in resolution, but it is still hard to detect small patches in rough terrain, or to determine whether orchards and agroforestry systems are irrigated. Finally, databases listed in Supplementary Material S5 present substantial differences, e.g. LGRIP<fnref n="2" /> identifies 82 Mha (millions of hectares) of irrigated cropland in Mediterranean countries,<fnref n="3" /> whereas global irrigated areas map (Meier et al., 2018a) highlights 31 Mha and GMIA 27 Mha. These great differences could be attributed to differing reference years and to varying definitions of irrigated areas. Indeed, uncertainties in global irrigated area estimates can be attributed to the underlying rationale of irrigation (Venot et al., 2021).

In Fig. 2, the GIA map (Meier et al., 2018a) shows irrigation spatial patterns on a Mediterranean scale. In this map, areas are “irrigated” if additional water is applied on a field (Supplementary Material S5). Irrigation withdrawals are especially high in the Nile Delta, Po Valley, eastern Mediterranean area and in some Spanish regions. These hotspots are directly linked to the presence of water sources (e.g. rivers or aquifers) and flat plains. Still, this regional map of irrigated areas is not informative about irrigation practices.

### 4.2.3. Matching of global maps with local information

Fig. 3a shows the disparity of operational information produced and used by Water User Associations across the eight HubIS case-study sites: sectoral map (Palos de la Frontera), cadastral map (Genil-Cabra), irrigation district(s) (Lucefecit, Gharb and Haouaria), canal layouts (Toevtavr and Crau) and specific application systems (El Oued). Gathering such maps raised questions about homogeneity and accessibility since such ancillary datasets are generally part of grey literature. Fig. 3b presents the confrontation of these local maps with two global datasets with different resolution: global maps do not document irrigation systems at HubIS study sites equally.

Fig. 3b shows that the LGRIP dataset fits better local information in Haouaria and El Oued, where water mainly comes from aquifers, and in Lucefecit where water is applied with sprinklers. However, the contours of the irrigation schemes are better documented by GIA for Gharb, Genil-Cabra, Crau and Tavropos. Hence, the higher resolution of LGRIP does not result in a better assessment of the irrigation phenomena in HubIS study sites: technical aspects of irrigated areas at the Mediterranean scale are still out of reach in global irrigation products built only with satellite images. While global maps may help circumscribe irrigation practices spatially, they are not helpful without a priori operational information. The results show that a more systematic ground-truth comparison of global products is needed. Once a sufficient number of local information is collected and harmonized, one may even build spatial

<footnote n="2">² https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/products/lgrip30v001/</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ Albania, Algeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Montenegro, Morocco, Palestine, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, Türkiye.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 2. Spatial distribution of irrigated areas in the Mediterranean Basin (30 arc-sec).</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 3. a) Local maps of irrigation systems collected from the HubIS research teams (composition by authors); b) Contours of local irrigated areas indicated on global irrigation maps (GIA and LGROP).</figcaption></figure>
indicators which may serve as a proxy of hydraulic infrastructure. Gathering and updating of operational datasets seems to be a good option to move forward, but coordination and governance efforts are needed to achieve information homogenization across scales and between-actor sharing. This could not only be useful to locate where specific technologies for irrigation management could be effective, but more broadly to improve the representation of hydrological dynamics in agricultural areas.

# 5. Discussion

In this section, we discuss the limits and perspectives of the methodology developed and implemented on the HubIS project, and we identify the challenges towards a translocal network of ICTs initiatives for irrigation systems.

## 5.1. ICTs innovation processes

The systematic observation of innovation narratives and its representation into collaborative archetypes is a promising avenue to ground technologies into social and environmental contexts. Indeed, the observation and analysis scheme developed to characterize ICTs innovation processes proved useful to trace, map, and analyze technological dynamics across cases and contexts. The small number of case studies, and their location in the Mediterranean region, limits the generalization of the development patterns identified in the HubIS project to other places and regions. Still, each of the methodological steps is relevant to pool shared meanings on new ways to work with technologies, which is crucial to improve ICTs accessibility.

Firstly, the categorization into context-mechanism-outcomes variables is particularly appropriate for characterizing a set of collaborative configurations in multistakeholder innovation platforms. Similar approaches were already developed to compose innovation stories (Douthwaite and Ashby, 2005), or map impact pathways based on processual logics (Valette et al., 2019), showing ability to capture the effect of innovation stakeholders' actions and to provide researchers a means of being more reflective about the innovation pathway they are engaged in. The HubIS project illustrates the reconfiguration of researchers' roles in collaborative settings to promote community-friendly technologies. Indeed, researchers were in a position of being both innovation coordinators and scientists, i.e. they were not solely local knowledge providers but also had a crucial role in the deployment of innovations, which reinforces previous work about participatory research for technology development (Hoffmann et al., 2007). The HubIS project also shows that stakeholders' participation is variable during research and development interventions, as already highlighted by (Sartas et al., 2019), and that contextual factors are hard to change, like pre-existing partnerships and institutional culture (Damtew et al., 2023).

Collaborative patterns, or drawings, illustrate the diverse range of technological histories: each impact pathway is linked to a succession of events and sociotechnical context. However, the social dynamics are grasped near real time through interviews with only one of the actors involved: drawings are only a snapshot in time from researchers' perspectives. While generating a simplified view of the social phenomena in multistakeholder innovation platforms, patterns' intention is to condense collaborative experience to enhance the probability that receivers will perceive the diversity of approaches and impact pathways (Entman, 1993). Finally, analyzes of knowledge amplification mechanisms revealed that developing technology only where it is indispensable or generates a clear advantage can only be achieved through grounded intervention in local real-world case studies. Indeed, researchers who develop collaborations with local actors and communities, via direct contact interactions and trust building, were more prone to adopt educational stances and change the view of technologies as complex objects to handle for small productivity benefits (Thomas

et al., 2023). Favoring amplification from individual knowledge to institutional capability (Roux et al., 2006) would definitely need flexible support instruments (Klerkx et al., 2010) and the institutional recognition of sociotechnical tinkering processes during innovation development (Quimby et al., 2023).

## 5.2. Irrigation information production and sharing

Available information flows on irrigation systems in the Mediterranean Basin are not sufficient to sketch a regional pattern of hydraulic infrastructures and are thus unable to convey usable information to locate spatial diffusion and potential target priorities for ICTs development. However, geographic information tracking and inter-comparison between scales and sources is a way of encouraging reflexive discussions about information generation and sharing processes.

Firstly, the gap between the reality of irrigation practices and what is easy to measure and share through global databases is attributed to the multitude of physical components of irrigation systems—agronomic, topographical, hydrological, and hydraulic. As a result, only a combination of datasets, at different scales, can help capture a local and dynamic phenomenon at the regional scale via geographic information systems. However, in the context of open science, an abundance of heterogeneous data from multiple sources challenges the extraction of meaningful insights. Hence, increasingly accessible open datasets are to be used with caution: its meaning depends on a precise understanding of how, where, and when it was created. In practice, as data-based methods are intrinsically biased toward low-context forms of information, it should be kept in mind that every data collection method is constrained and every dataset is filtered. Indeed, global open databases generally rely on standardized and aggregated information, thereby enhancing its portability and broadening the user base, but with a loss of context-sensitivity. Hence, specific attention should be paid to mechanically repeatable measurements with regard to larger-scaled bureaucracy and subsequent indicator production (Molle and Mollinga, 2003).

The investigation also informs about the deployment of remote-sensing products for irrigation mapping. While earth-observation techniques help capture the contours of irrigated areas at high resolution, methodological reproducibility and repeatability across vast scales is achieved to the detriment of nuances between categories (Venot et al., 2021). As a result, global maps of irrigated areas inherently simplify irrigation definitions, which gives a clue concerning the gap with local information sources. However, the comparison shows that global maps could serve as a proxy of the physical characteristics of irrigated areas if a more systematic combination with local information were performed. Hence, combining different sources of information more systematically (Supplementary Material S7 provides an example from a French case study) is a promising avenue for locating where specific technologies for irrigation management could be effective. However, local insights produced by WUAs from various places are not easy to find nor are they accessible, and harmonization of diverse operational datasets is not always possible. Yet, while unleashing information flows across scales and organizations could enhance the overall understanding of irrigation issues, the willingness of communities to join efforts and expertise is uncertain. Whatever the communication channel, data should be well documented because the practice of assigning metadata to datasets for the purpose of contextualization is crucial for data reuse in an increasingly complex digital environment.

## 5.3. Information circulation across scales, actors, and contexts

The methodological investigation fuels the debate on digital agriculture and its deployment, and shows that there are alternative avenues for irrigation sustainable development through technology. Indeed, combining global mapping with ground truth information can help characterize irrigation practices more finely, and tracing and illustrating innovation dynamics across cases and contexts can help connect
technological experimentations. Hence, lessons learned in navigating the tensions between global information systems and collaborative experiences of the HubIS project could likely trigger information and knowledge flows across Mediterranean territories and contribute to sustainable agricultural water management. Still, to connect the drops of ICTs experimentations for and in irrigation systems requires to explore ways to effectively support the connection, or scaling out, of grassroots initiatives and trigger learning across actors, scales, and contexts.

To develop the idea of a network of ICTs experimentation that facilitate circulation in-between local irrigation communities, we propose to use the notion of upcycling which we define as the process of transforming a range of local technological initiatives into a network of learning initiatives. This notion builds upon a sociological conception of relation and a geographical perspective on connection. First, rather than dropped black-boxes, technologies can be viewed as boundary objects (Leigh Star, 2010) that materialize knowledge and facilitate the dynamic interfacing between two communities. The technologies are both tools and results of the communication of information and knowledge: a circulation process emerges from reciprocal links and may transform communities shared environment. Second, translocal networks blend local specificity and global connectivity, either directly in a network of local initiatives or through the mediation of a network node that helps coordination between organizations. Translocal connectivity (Pel et al., 2020), facilitated by the expansion of ICTs networks, includes knowledge exchange and the circulation of organizational models, framings, narratives, and practices.

In practice, the shift operated in this paper, from technologies and innovations to information and knowledge circulation, suggest cyclical dynamics between information provision and communication channel supply and highlight the role of researchers from different disciplines to collect, document, and share local datasets and stories. Indeed, the alternative mapping process appears to be a possible methodological route for upcycling. However, a flexible sharing rationale is crucial to improve synergetic relations between local and global scales, and the coordination of initiatives to join local databases and to collect and structure stories on technological experimentation faces important challenges. First, one need to connect researchers, as translocal agents, to accumulate information about irrigation infrastructures and to ensure data documentation and accessibility. Moreover, researchers need to develop direct relationship with practitioners and have discussion about what really falls within the public domain. Second, to connect researchers with in-depth understanding of innovation dynamics in various places is also a challenge because qualitative social investigations are difficult to compare. However, generalized practices of sharing social investigations, for example through a given structuration, could ease comparison and favor learning across scales and actors.

## 6. Conclusion

The paper proposes an interdisciplinary approach to assess technological outreach and address collaboration and information challenges of ICTs innovation scaling-out in irrigation systems. This approach was implemented on a set of local initiatives through an original methodological scheme to track the spatial dynamics of irrigation systems in the Mediterranean region and the collaborative mechanisms during technological experimentations in multistakeholder innovation platforms. Information and communication practices are traced and analyzed based on investigation into global and local datasets to map irrigation technical layouts at a regional scale, and on feedbacks from empirical works in a Euro-Mediterranean funded research project. Maps and graphics were used to represent the traces left by information sharing and innovation pathways. First, the results show a gap between global and local representations of irrigation practices, but used in combination these information sources can help connect irrigation practices more finely. Second, the results highlight the possibility to map collaborative patterns of technological processes in multistakeholder innovation

platforms and connect technological experimentations. Since irrigation practices and innovation pathways are both very diverse, the number of case studies at hand is still the limiting factor for generalization. However, some methodological perspectives arise to gain knowledge about technology circulation through local collaboration and to fine-tune information about regional irrigation practices through information exchange. As local reproduction of success stories is an illusion, leveraging learning capacities requires a departure from the “scalable solutions” mantra towards a translocal perspective that recognizes and favors emerging dynamics between information and communication processes. Still, to connect the drops of technological experimentations, interoperability, reliability, and governance issue of information circuits must be considered with sufficient attention, and local collaborative initiatives between users and developers must be compiled and shared more systematically.

## CRediT authorship contribution statement

**Belaud Gilles:** Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Project administration, Funding acquisition. **Daudin Kevin:** Writing – review & editing, Writing – original draft, Visualization, Software, Resources, Project administration, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization. **Lejars Caroline:** Writing – review & editing, Validation, Investigation. **Bouzidi Zhou:** Writing – review & editing, Validation, Investigation. **Leauthaud Crystele:** Writing – review & editing, Funding acquisition.

## Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

## Acknowledgements

The work was carried out as part of the HubIS project (EU's PRIMA program 2019, grant ANR-19-P026-0006-02). We are particularly grateful to all HubIS research team who participated in the interviews and to everyone involved in the HubIS project. Many thanks also to Louis Schwien for development of the geocatalog. The authors are finally very grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

## Appendix A. Supporting information

Supplementary data associated with this article can be found in the online version at doi:10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109545.

## Data availability

Data will be made available on request.

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