Background Mediterranean countries use around 70% of their water for irrigation. The average loss of water in the region is extremely high, with often less than half the water foreseen for irrigation actually reaching the crops. The mismanagement of this resource poses a particular problem in a region already suffering from a lack of water reserves. However, considerable potential exists for improving the efficiency of irrigation systems, and, as such as substantial percentage of the water used is used for this purpose, a small increase in irrigation efficiency would result in a major water saving. However, most software management for irrigation communities are adaptations of software developed for other purposes. When applying them to irrigation water management, they do not seem to be very flexible and lead to inaccuracies. Many of them cannot store all the information generated by the autonomous regions, which leads to a loss of important data. The management developed with them is merely administrative: they allow management of irrigation water itself. Furthermore, many irrigation systems are proprietary systems that belong to a specific manufacturer, leading to systems with low flexibility and expensive maintenance costs. Objectives The project aimed to demonstrate the use of “gEa”, an interoperable irrigation management platform, in the El Vicario community in Guadiana, Spain. The online system supports decision-making by offering the automated and real-time reading of meters, control of water quality, regulation of water consumption and detection of leaks. Considerable water savings were expected, along with better control of salinity levels and exploitation of nutrients. The main objective of the project was to demonstrate the gEa system in 'El Vicario' Irrigation Community (Spain). The gEa system, which offers decision support functionality, can be accessed via the internet, and aims to modernise and optimise irrigation water management systems. First, the project was to develop the capacity of gEa to control water consumption and to improve the technical, hydraulic and administrative management of 'El Vicario', providing a basis to expand it on a larger scale. Next, the project aimed to develop gEa as a decision support system that determines the best option for each irrigation community in order to systematically optimise the management of the entire river basin. More specifically, the project was to provide ubiquitous access to gEa water management services and irrigation management information, to automate the community system by means of remote control, using gEa to communicate with the existing devices, to provide decision support mechanisms that help irrigation programming, to provide alternative access to the irrigation information, to bridge the gap between the latest technologies and modern irrigation water management systems, and to train farmers in the use of information technologies to support the management of their irrigation communities. Results The gEa tool was indeed tested in the El Vicario community. However, due to a drought at the time, the tool could only be tested in two plots, as the irrigation community could not supply water from the reservoir using the community water network. Therefore, the two plots used water from their own well. This modification had repercussions on the project development, as the management of the water network and detection and prevention of leaks could not be fully developed or tested in the field, and the conclusions drafted were based only on a very small sample of results. Nonetheless the results obtained were sufficient to prove that the tool is working and that it is useful for the farmers. The beneficiary managed to illustrate to sector stakeholders (including farmers and community managers) how to use the gEa system via a lead demonstration project. This activity found that the amount of water saved (1,087,000 litres) in only two fields gave a good idea of the water savings that could be achieved after the technology was installed across all community plots. The specific objectives of using the gEa were achieved, which proved to be a useful water management service with ubiquitous access, enabling remote control of community irrigation and providing decision support mechanisms to help irrigation programming. Furthermore, the technology was an effective information manager. The gEa technology is an important step towards applying new web technologies to agriculture, especially to irrigation management. In addition, gEa is a multi-device system, i.e., it is possible to access the system using several devices, from a PC to a PDA (personal digital assistant), guaranteeing that the system interface is adapted to the device from where an individual is accessing it. The gEa software allows its users to choose the best option for management of an irrigation community. It is independent of platforms (as it is 100% Java) and manufacturers, and thus can be integrated with multiple different types of devices and control units. The possibility of interconnecting in a relatively easy way by various remote control devices accessed through XML communication brings a significant degree of innovation to an irrigation management system.