Water, Land and People - Goulburn Broken Catchment ...

part of the catchment, hence the shifting focus of the
research efforts.
A range of science disciplines at Tatura and within the
state wide Primary Industries Research Division supply
scientific analysis of issues and needs arising in the
region. This supports both decision making processes
and also provides a training opportunity for young
scientists in land and water management issues in a
key irrigation region of Victoria. It is a key partnership
between the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management
Authority and State Government.
Activities and achievements
Irrigation Water Use Efficiency
Benchmarking
The Project Leader, Andrew McAllister and research
staff, Elizabeth Morse-McNabb, Des Whitfield, Lucy
Finger, Masoud Edraki, Hayley Rokahr and Daniella
Csaky worked with DPI – PIRVic and DSE – Water
Sector Group on this project. Funding was provided
through Victorian Water Trust, DPI Agriculture
Development program 1 and the project duration
was January 2004 to December 2008.
Background
Over past decades there has been increasing
pressure for greater Water Use Efficiency in
Victoria’s agricultural industries. In 2004, farm
Water Use Efficiency indicators were published and
a framework for benchmarking farm Water Use
Efficiency for irrigated industries within Victoria’s
major irrigation regions was developed. This study
has sought to review and implement the proposed
Water Use Efficiency benchmarking framework
within the northern irrigation regions. The project
objective is to benchmark Water Use Efficiency on
farms in all metered irrigation regions in Victoria and
develop a framework for an on-going Water Use
Efficiency Benchmarking program.
A number of organisations currently collect water
use and production data for irrigated agriculture in
various regions and industries. However, existing
data collection programs have shortcomings; the
scale of reporting is too large, data may not be
sufficient to enable the evaluation of necessary
Water Use Efficiency indicators and data may only
be collected for one region of the state. This project
has also focused on linking these existing programs
by developing data sharing arrangements.
Results, Implications and Benefits
Satellite remote sensing and G-MW’s water use
database were used to identify areas of irrigated
pasture and associated water use in the Central
Goulburn Irrigation District. The Water Use
Efficiency indicators for the 1996-1997 and
2003-2004 irrigation seasons were calculated
for approximately 800 dairy farms in the Central
Goulburn Irrigation District and the map below
demonstrated the output for Indicator 1, (total
water supplied and crop water requirement) in the
Central Goulburn.
Project Impact and Key Directions
The project outputs have already had a significant
impact on the perception of water use in the Dairy
Industry in Northern Victoria. This work has shown
that at a regional scale and on an irrigation season
basis, dairy properties are not overusing water.
This benchmarking process will be extended to all
irrigated regions Statewide as a two-stage program
to improve understanding of Crop Water Use. This
will improve the ability to derive realistic estimates
of crop water use for the major irrigated land
uses that occur within Victoria and to develop and
implement remotely sensed approaches to deriving
crop water use.
Ancillary to this work is the development of a Land
Use Information System to monitor these indicators
over time. This requires a current picture of land
use and irrigated enterprise to be available. Work
will also progress the development of a prototype
Water Use Efficiency reporting system to make the
information products available.
PROGRAM REPORTS
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