IRRISOFT Background and History

History

IRRISOFT - Irrigation and Hydrology Software Database as of February 2000

Figure 1:
IRRISOFT - Irrigation and Hydrology Software Database at the Department of Rural Engineering and Natural Resource Protection of the University of Kassel, Germany, February 2000.

IRRISOFT - Start page as of September 2015 @ Sakia.org

Figure 2:
IRRISOFT - Irrigation and Hydrology Software Database as of September 2015 @ Sakia.org.

1995–1998: Finding and cataloguing software

IRRISOFT was an online Irrigation and Hydrology Software Database established in 1995 at the former Department of Rural Engineering and Natural Resource Protection of the University of Kassel in Germany (Figure 1). It was one of the major projects established as part of the Sakia.org services [Stein, 1996] .

At the time, structured technical information on irrigation and hydrology software and tools was still scarce and was not yet provided online by many institutions, organisations or companies. Search engines, web crawlers and content indexing were also only beginning to emerge. Finding relevant information therefore remained difficult for professionals and scientists seeking suitable software applications and tools.

Before comprehensive search engines became widely available, finding information on the Web largely depended on knowing where to look. It was the era of web catalogues and directories. Numerous individuals and organisations began developing specialised catalogues to assist the growing Internet community by identifying, describing, classifying and linking to relevant online resources.

IRRISOFT developed within this environment as a specialised resource for irrigation, drainage and hydrology software. Information on more than 100 dedicated programs was collected, compiled and presented online in a unified structure, allowing scientists and professionals to identify suitable tools and, in some cases, download selected software packages through an anonymous FTP server.

Co-operation with institutions such as ILRI (The Netherlands) and ICID was initiated to update and extend, as well as to merge existing knowledge on irrigation, drainage and hydrology software worldwide [Jurriens and Lenselink, 1996] .

Software descriptions (SDPs) were thematically categorised and made accessible online under:

Irrigation Systems Programs
Surface Irrigation Programs
Sprinkler Irrigation Programs
Drip / Trickle Irrigation Programs
Canals and Canal Network Programs
Pipes, Pipe Network and Pumping Programs
Hydraulic Structure Programs
Irrigation Management Programs
Drainage Programs
Other Irrigation Programs
Hydrology Programs

1999–2004: Preserving access during transition

Following the retirement of Prof. Dr Peter Wolff in 1998, the department was closed and the service could no longer be maintained or updated.

Nevertheless, arrangements were made to keep the original resources online for many years, and access to those services was generously provided by the University of Kassel until 2004.

2004–2015: Moving from a catalogue towards integrated online applications

With the re-establishment of the Sakia.org services on a standalone server in November 2003, the re-establishment of the new IRRISOFT site could be approached. The older site was taken down, underwent a complete overhaul and revision, and was subsequently relaunched in 2004 (see Figure 2).

Traditionally, the majority of applications in the field of irrigation, drainage and hydrology had been developed as stand-alone software to be installed and run on local PCs or workstations. With advances in software and web technologies, however, new opportunities emerged for providing applications directly online and making them accessible to a much wider range of users.

The online approach also offered possibilities beyond simply transferring existing stand-alone applications to the Web. Applications could increasingly share and link data, allowing individual tools to become components of more comprehensive and integrated systems. Such systems could potentially combine functions such as crop water use estimation, irrigation scheduling, climate data and predictions, growth models and other related applications.

Customised user accounts could provide additional functionality, allowing users to retain previous sessions and store personalised information on crops, soils and other parameters for subsequent use.

The new IRRISOFT was intended to provide a framework for this new generation of online applications within the broader ’land and water’ arena, while continuing to provide the traditional software descriptions, reviews and inventory.

The development of easily accessible online applications and tools in irrigation, drainage and hydrology therefore became a major new focus of IRRISOFT.

IRRISOFT database/inventory
A list of original program descriptions from the historic site, as well as new and revised program descriptions and reviews.
IRRISOFT online tools
A set of online tools and applications which could be executed directly on the server.

2015: Service interruption

Following a server failure in late 2015, the entire Sakia.org site and all related services, including IRRISOFT, had to be taken offline. Although a skeleton site was established in 2016, the services could not be restored to their former or more recent scope.

The primary reasons were financial rather than technical, compounded by severe time constraints. Despite sustained demand and steady growth prior to the collapse, the lack of sufficient long-term funding had become critical well before the final failure. More details are given under in the Sakia.org - Background / Historic / Current section.

2026: Historical preservation and selective redevelopment

In March 2026, the new Sakia.org site was launched. While still limited in content, it already provided the structure and a sound basis for the addition of relevant historical content as well as possible new content.

In October 2026, an extended update was released, re-establishing various sections of the former sites and services, centred on the historical content of the Virtual Library Irrigation and Hydrology, the e-Journal of Land and Water (eJLW) and the Sakia.org e-publish section.

Subsequently, work commenced on adding the IRRISOFT section, with the main and general landing pages as well as some content related to the historical software index.

References

Jurriens, M. and K. J. Lenselink, 1996 (Eds.):
Irrigation software information - how to find and evaluate the program you need.-
Report of a Workshop, Montpellier, France, 22–25 January 1996, ILRI Special Report, Wageningen, 96 pp.
https://edepot.wur.nl/76464
Stein, T.-M., 1996:
IRRISOFT – A World Wide Web database on irrigation and hydrology software. -
Journal of Applied Irrigation Science (Zeitschrift für Bewässerungswirtschaft), 31 (1), 51–63.
VL reprint under:
VL Irrigation & Hydrology - vl_ref_id_x_0014
Stein, T.-M., 1996:
IRRISOFT World Wide Web Database on Irrigation & Hydrology Software - Volume I. -
Department of Rural Engineering and Natural Resources Protection, University of Kassel, Germany, pp. 1–224.
Stein, T.-M., 1996:
IRRISOFT World Wide Web Database on Irrigation & Hydrology Software - Volume II. -
Department of Rural Engineering and Natural Resources Protection, University of Kassel, Germany, pp. 225–374.

Published on 27 Oct 2026