Kipp & Zonen LAS helps to impove Water Management in Australia
Scintillometers have been essential for Australia’s Department of Primary Industry (DPI) in measuring heat flux in critical agricultural areas in the Sunraysia and Goulburn Valley regions of Victoria. Both these regions are irrigated from Australia’s largest inland water source, the Murray-Darling river system. The region is suffering from twelve years of drought and inland water management is becoming more and more critical.
Environmental Systems & Services (ES&S) in Melbourne is playing its part by supplying the tools to enable more effective management of scarce resources. Over the past 12 months DPI purchased three Large Aperture Scintillometers for their water resource and agricultural management programs.
These programs managed by Dr. Des Whitfield, Senior Agronomist at DPI will be strengthened by research conducted at a number of other Australian Universities that have also recently purchased Kipp & Zonen Scintillometers, including Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga and James Cook University, Townsville.
According to Dr Whitfield, the formulation of optimal efficient water use strategies at farm-catchment scales depends on a sound appreciation of water requirements for maximal vegetation health and productivity in relation to the quantities of water available for agricultural and environmental purposes. The ongoing drought in south-eastern Australia, combined with climate-change expectations, has heightened and emphasised the imperative for improved water management at farm - regional scales throughout the Murray-Darling Basin of eastern Australia. Drought has severely restricted seasonal irrigation entitlements, and compromised the ability of catchment managers to provide water for environmental purposes. The condition of river red gum riparian vegetation on the Murray River and its tributaries is a major political and environmental concern in the states of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia.
Satellite remote sensing methods offer the ability to evaluate landscape water use in terms of the contributions made by land use and extent, evapotranspiration rate, and vegetation water requirement. This project aims to provide tools, information and approaches for high agricultural productivity and minimal water waste on irrigation farms in the MDB, and a method to evaluate the water requirement of environmental assets in irrigated catchments of the Murray Darling Basin. The project is supported by the Commonwealth through the ‘Raising National Water Standards’ program of the National Water Commission, the Cooperative Research Centre for Irrigation Futures, and by the State of Victoria through support from the Departments of Primary Industries (DPI), and Sustainability and environment (DSE).
The project, in conjunction with allied projects in the RNWS portfolio of satellite remote sensing projects, aims to assess and validate satellite remote sensing methods for evapotranspiration measurement at farm-regional scales under the unique conditions experienced in the MDB. DPI scientists are using the Kipp & Zonen Large Aperture Scintillometer and other instruments, to make on-ground measurements of surface energy balance components, including evapotranspiration, for comparison with satellite-derived estimates of the on-ground energy fluxes. Comparisons are underway in a strategic range of land uses encountered in the major irrigation districts of the MDB, including lucerne, tomatoes, vines, and fallow land. Field validation and testing activities in districts that include the Sunraysia and Goulburn Valley irrigation areas of Victoria, and the irrigation districts in New South Wales, will facilitate the application of the SEBAL and METRIC satellite remote sensing ET algorithms to major irrigated crops of the region (perennial pasture for dairy production, fresh grapes, wine grapes, and stone, pome, nut and citrus fruits), and, tentatively, to red gum forests on the Murray and Goulburn Rivers.
For more information on this application or products please contact Tim Cookes, Tim.Cookes@ESandS.com
