Design an

Irrigation system

that is that is that can

self sustainable replicable cater to large areas
• Allows future generations to have the same opportunities to
benefit from our land as we do
– Continues to generate agricultural products at reasonable costs into the future
– Ensures that environment is itself maintained so that it can sustain the
communities that depend upon it
– Does not degrade the quality of land, water and other natural resources that
contribute to both agricultural production and environmental quality

How?
• It extracts only the amount of water that can be replenished
through recharge
• It applies water to crops efficiently
• It minimizes downstream environmental damage
• For river systems
• We propose to extract only a sustainable amount of water from the
river systems that ensures that river health is maintained
• We should take less than 50% of the median flows of the river

• For groundwater systems

• Our extraction should not exceed replacement, so the resource is
maintained in the long term

• Use tools to measure river health

• Based on the biological outcomes based around aquatic
invertebrates, fish, algae, floodplain vegetation and waterbirds
• They give more information than on the concentrations of various
chemical substances
 • Apply water to crops efficiently
• Minimize losses during delivery to site & application to
Objective crops
• Apply only the amount of water that crop needs

• In open channels
• Around 15-25% of water is lost to seepage and
evaporation
Problems • On farm losses of some 24% are common with seepage
and evaporation
• only 36% of the water that leaves storage finds its way
to the plant

• In lighter soils, use lining or pipe water to achieve significant

savings
Solution •Use soil moisture sensors and computer driven systems to
ensure water is only supplied when it is needed
 • Use micro-irrigation tools – tickle, drip, spray
• More than 90% efficient
• Can use relatively saline water
• Programmable

• Use Irrigation scheduling

• Monitor moisture availability
• Crop stage of growth and vigor
• Air temperature and wind speed
• Rainfall or irrigation water applied
• Soil moisture
• Calculations needed
• Daily crop water use or evapo-transpiration
• Soil water balances and water available to plants
 • Reduce downstream impacts
Objective • Manage drainage to minimize waterlogging and salinisation

• Intercept the salty water and dispose of it to evaporating

basins away from the river, and to salty aquifers
• Treat our irrigation system as a closed system that must
Solution manage its salt within their boundaries rather than accept a
subsidy from others by dumping it to the environment
• Water reuse
• Reuse irrigation water prior to discharge
• Use municipal waste water for irrigation
• Use irrigation benchmarking system
• To analyse the range of water use efficiencies in each commodity and each area

• Increase irrigation efficiency

• Control seepage loss
• Reduce evaporation in fields
• Schedule irrigation based on soil moisture and
plant needs
• Don’t over-fertilize crops
• Control weeds that compete for water
• Time planting to take greatest advantage of
natural precipitation

• Select appropriate land to irrigate

• We need to select the most appropriate soils to irrigate
• These will be the soils that have the least waterlogging risk and salt
hazard
• Use airborne remote sensing to identify salt reservoirs and pathways in
the landscape, so we can avoid applying water to such areas
• Use pumped pipe systems to deliver water to the most appropriate
areas rather than just flood areas that are downslope of a distribution
channel
• as the salinity of soil or water increases, more water should be
applied to push salt down below the root zone