ALIVA

Service Design for Climate Resilience

ALIVA is a strategic service design project developed to mitigate the devastating effects of drought on Sicilian olive groves. By monitoring physiological sap flow signals, the system provides farmers with adaptive pruning strategies, bridging the gap between agronomic theory and traditional field practice.

Credits ↓

My Role: Service Design & Branding
Service Design: Wuriandita Wahyumurti Candra, Alessandro Moneta
Product Prototype: Despoina Hadjiyanni, Josefina Bustos Guirao
App UX/UI Design: Lara Bosani
Lab: Innovation Studio, PSSD, Politecnico di Milano

The Challenge

Translating physiological olive tree signals into water-saving strategies.

How can we enable small olive growers to make informed pruning decisions to improve climate resilience?

Expected Impact

110k

Liters of water saved per hectare/year

80%

Reduction in crop loss risk

01. Discovery

The collapse of traditional agriculture.

Sicily has lost 30% of its water availability in recent years. Although strategic pruning can increase water efficiency by 10-25%, small farmers lack the tools to decide when to intervene without risk.

"There is a massive gap between agronomic theory and daily practice in small-scale farming."
– Interviewed Italian Agronomist

02. Strategy

A layered ecosystem, not just an app.

ALIVA is a layered service system integrating cooperatives, agronomists, and institutions. It doesn't just provide data; it builds trust through training and constant support.

System Map

The system map visualizes the project's logic, illustrating how on-field data, digital processing, and expert human intervention interact to create a resilient service infrastructure.

Offering Map

The offering is structured into core services (decision support), secondary (continuous monitoring), and enabling services (on-field training to bridge the technological gap).

Stakeholder Map

Identifying the key actors within the ecosystem, from farmers and cooperatives to institutional and operational partners.

03. User Personas

Guido (Small-scale)

"I need to build confidence and learn how to prune independently under climate stress."

The need for clear, practical guidelines that translate intuition and personal observation into accessible technical analysis, reducing the fear of damaging trees due to climate variability.

Marta (Medium-scale)

"I need to optimize my production through a hybrid approach of smart data and expert validation."

The need for reliable data interpretation to manage plots with varying conditions, seeking a balance between decision-making autonomy and specialized alerts for the most critical pruning phases.

Domenico (Large-scale)

"I need to maximize efficiency and mitigate financial risks through full-service management."

The need for scalable, "turnkey" solutions that include continuous monitoring and expert team intervention, allowing for the full delegation of pruning strategy to focus on business growth.

04. The PSSD System

Hardware as a Touchpoint.

The sap flow sensor is the tool that enables the strategy. We designed a modular solution using Velcro to adapt to different trunks, ensuring ease of installation for non-tech experts without harming the tree.

Modular design
Velcro strap installation
Weather-proof casing

App as a Guide.

The interface transforms complex physiological data (evapotranspiration, sap flow) into a simple "Pruning Calendar" and practical tutorials. Data becomes actionable knowledge.

Simplified Decision Support

Converting sensor graphs into easy-to-follow agricultural tasks.

Behind the scenes

Backstage

Documenting the process, the team, and the making of Aliva.