Giacomo Falaschi
Why SprinklerMap exists
The first system I designed was for my own garden. Then friends started asking — how did you do it, with what tools, how many heads do I need here — and in my spare time I helped them work theirs out.
Answering case by case, I realised there were too many variables to keep in my head: change the pressure at the tap and the radius changes, change the radius and the spacing changes, change the shape of the garden and the zoning falls apart. So I stopped answering out loud and wrote the software.
My day job is automation
It is no accident it ended up this way: for a living I write software flows that take complex rules and procedures and make them executable, so nobody has to remember them all and apply them by hand one at a time.
An irrigation system is the same kind of problem at garden scale. Head-to-head spacing, the flow limit per circuit, the rule against putting pop-ups and drip on the same zone are precise constraints that hold each other together — and that you almost always get wrong by eye.
What is inside the tool
SprinklerMap contains four sprinkler placement algorithms, pressure loss via Hazen-Williams, water demand via the Penman-Monteith method of FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper No. 56, head-to-head overlap and precipitation rate per zone. Every number you see on screen comes from one of these formulas, and each one is declared on the Methodology page.
What I am not
I am not an irrigation designer. I do not carry out site surveys, installations or commissioning for other people, and I do not sell systems: SprinklerMap is for preliminary design, it does not replace an installer's judgement on site.
Where an article compares models, it compares the specifications declared by the manufacturers and their public catalogues, and says so. I check the maths inside the tool, on cases built for the purpose — small gardens, irregular areas, slopes, limited flow — and the guides come from data sheets and public documentation (FAO 56, EPA WaterSense, ASABE and Irrigation Association guidelines).
Write to me
If you find a mistake in the maths or in a guide, write to me through the contact form: corrections get published with their date.