Dujiangyan: From Water Management to “Smart Water” — A New Digital Era for the Thousand-Year-Old Irrigation District
On November 6th, in the command center of the Dujiangyan Irrigation District (都江堰灌区指挥中心), staff input a command to open a gate 200mm wide through a computer system. Instantly, 107 kilometers away at the No. 9 sluice gate of the Southwest Main Canal of the Dongfeng Canal (东风渠西南干渠9号放水洞), the gate opened, allowing water to flow through. The data was transmitted back to the command hall in real-time.
“This is our newly operational command center hall this year,” said Li Jin (李劲), head of the Dujiangyan Irrigation District Command Center, pointing to a massive LCD screen measuring 30.72 meters long and 5.76 meters high. The screen displays the topography, canal distribution, and other vital information of the Dujiangyan Irrigation District. Smart remote control technology even covers the smallest sluice gates at the furthest ends of the canal system.
As China’s largest irrigation district, Dujiangyan constantly faces new challenges in service and management. A major question in recent years has been how to use modern digital technology to enhance management efficiency — a key focus for the district’s ongoing development.
The “Smart Brain” Behind Dujiangyan
Establishing a High-Performance Cloud Computing Data Center
At the Sichuan Dujiangyan Water Conservancy Development Center (四川省都江堰水利发展中心, “Dufa Center”), two striking maps hang side by side in a meeting room.
- The left map, drawn before 1949, shows Dujiangyan’s irrigation area at the time, which only covered 14 counties and irrigated 2.82 million mu (about 188,000 hectares) of farmland.
- The right map, created this year, illustrates the greatly expanded Dujiangyan irrigation area, with the Dujiangyan Water Conservancy Project (都江堰水利工程) as its core.
According to Wu Jian (吴鉴), Deputy Director of the Dufa Center, the Dujiangyan Irrigation District now spans 28,600 square kilometers and irrigates 11.33 million mu (755,000 hectares) of farmland. It serves 7 cities and 40 counties (districts) with a population of over 28 million.
The Shift from “Water Management” to “Smart Water”
With a history of over 2,200 years, Dujiangyan has evolved into a massive engineering system consisting of:
- The headworks hub (渠首枢纽)
- A multi-level canal system
- Various hydraulic structures
- Large, medium, and small reservoirs and ponds
Dujiangyan is known for its “four greats”:
- Long historical span
- Large-scale engineering
- Wide irrigation coverage
- Significant socio-economic benefits
However, as irrigation areas expand and functions grow, relying solely on traditional “experience-based” management methods is no longer viable.
In recent years, Dujiangyan has embraced smart water conservancy, shifting from “managing water” to “intelligent water management.”
Building a Digital Water Network
Guided by the goal of precise water resource management, the Dufa Center integrates water transport, supply, drainage, and flood control into a unified system, forming a digital water network with three core elements:
- Digital scenarios (数字化场景)
- Smart simulations (智慧化模拟)
- Accurate decision-making (精准化决策)
Through this system, water flow is measured and dispatched with precision at key control points.
Remote Monitoring and Control
“In the past, patrolling canals and controlling sluice gates relied entirely on manual labor. Large sluice stations might have needed dozens of workers,” said Lei Gang (雷刚), Director of the Science and Technology and Information Department at the Dufa Center.
Today, with over 1,200 video monitoring points across the Dujiangyan Irrigation District, real-time monitoring and remote operations are possible. This not only reduces labor intensity but also boosts efficiency.
Powerful Cloud Computing
The Dujiangyan Irrigation District has also built the largest cloud computing data center among China’s major irrigation districts:
- Computing power: 2.36 million trillion operations per second
- Storage capacity: 709TB
This high-performance data center supports not only Dujiangyan’s infrastructure and management but also serves as a data storage and computing hub for Sichuan Province’s water conservancy information systems.
Digital Twin Technology: Creating a “Virtual Dujiangyan”
What is a Digital Twin Irrigation District?
At the end of 2022, following the successful pilot of the Digital Twin Basin Dujiangyan (Headworks Hub) (数字孪生流域都江堰渠首枢纽), the Dujiangyan Irrigation District was selected by China’s Ministry of Water Resources as part of its Digital Twin Irrigation District Pilot Project (数字孪生灌区先行先试建设).
But what exactly is a Digital Twin Irrigation District?
According to Li Yinong (李益农), Director of the Institute of Water Conservancy at the China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (中国水利水电科学研究院), a digital twin irrigation district is an advanced infrastructure that uses:
- The physical irrigation district as the foundation
- Spatiotemporal data as the base layer
- Mathematical models as the core
- Hydraulic knowledge as the driver
It digitally maps all elements and processes of the physical district’s construction and operations.
“Virtual Siblings” of the Irrigation District
“Simply put, building a digital twin irrigation district is like creating a digital ‘twin brother’ for the physical district,” said Lei Gang.
The goal is to have the physical and virtual districts run simultaneously, allowing for:
- Real-time monitoring
- Problem detection
- Optimized dispatching
Progress in the Digital Twin Project
In the past year, the Dufa Center has achieved several milestones:
- 26.7 square kilometers of oblique photography and real-world modeling of the headworks hub
- BIM modeling of 23 sluice gates
- 48 underwater topographic models
- Over 200 kilometers of high-precision oblique photography of the Dongfeng Canal’s main line
- Development of hydraulic, smart recognition, and visual simulation models
A Digital Twin Platform (渠首数字孪生平台) for the headworks hub has been preliminarily established.
Real-Life Simulations
In June, during a flood control drill at the Dufa Center, the headworks’ Digital Twin Platform was used for the first time.
The drill simulated heavy rainfall upstream on the Minjiang River (岷江), with inflows into the Zipingpu Reservoir (紫坪铺水库) exceeding 3,000 cubic meters per second.
“Open the outer river gate!” With a single command, a flood simulation appeared on the command center’s big screen, displaying real-time data on water levels, flow rates, and gate operations.
The Future of the Dujiangyan Digital Twin Irrigation District
According to Li Jin, the Digital Twin Platform helps simulate the effects of water resource dispatch plans and dynamically presents key steps in real-time, using both 2D and 3D digital scenes. This provides decision-makers with intuitive, accurate information — accelerating decision-making and enhancing precision.
Once fully operational, the Dujiangyan Digital Twin Irrigation District will be capable of:
- Self-judgment
- Autonomous decision-making
- Automated execution
Ultimately, this will enable unmanned monitoring and minimal on-site staffing.
Currently, the project is steadily expanding from the headworks hub to the entire irrigation district.
Dujiangyan, with its 2,200-year history, is not only a masterpiece of ancient Chinese water management but is also boldly embracing modern technology. The shift from “managing water” to “smart water” is revolutionizing how this ancient yet vital irrigation system operates — ensuring its continued role in supporting agriculture and communities for generations to come.
