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Planning Tools

Future scenarios and ecological risk assessments

Rising global demand for food offers a positive outlook for irrigators, with potential for higher commodity prices. However, producers face increasingly competitive and volatile markets, compounded by the global fnancial crisis. There are also looming shortages of water, as cities increase their demands, water is reallocated to improve the environment and flows are affected by climate change.

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Modernisation

Enhancing water supply systems

The redesign, refurbishment and automation of irrigation systems and their management is being driven by the need to: improve the water use efficiency of irrigation supply systems by reducing losses, so making more water available for additional irrigation or other uses, including the environment; improve the operational efficiency of irrigation supply systems through the rationalisation and automation of distribution, drainage and storage (more)...

Weeds: One of Australia’s major environmental problems

As the Australian Weeds Strategy recognises “Weeds have major economic, environmental and social impacts in Australia, causing damage to natural landscapes, agricultural lands, waterways and coastal areas”. To a significant extent the Australian Government’s focus on weed management, whether at the research, policy or implementation level, has been on weeds and their impacts on rural production. This is scarcely surprising, given estimates that the agricultural impacts of (more)...

Water Allocation to the River Murray wetlands

A basin wide modeling approach

How much water do the wetlands of the Murray River need? This project developed a model of the wetland plant community in 2,746 wetlands from the NSW and Victorian portions of the Murray River basin. The model used as data the average length of time out of each year each wetland was connected to the River Murray over the period 1990-2000. This value, called the connectivity, quantifies the wetting-drying cycle of a wetland. It describes the gradient between a (more)...

Knowledge Seeking Strategies of Natural Resource Professionals

Workshop Synthesis

The degradation of natural resources in Australia has been causing widespread community and political concern. Australia has a well regarded and sophisticated research base in natural resources and yet there is an ongoing challenge to get this knowledge used by the resource managers who could benefit from it (Vanclay & Lawrence, 1995). The CRC for Freshwater Ecology and the Rivers Consortium jointly conducted this workshop at (more)...

Indigenous Interests in Tropical Rivers: Research & Management Issues

of the Scoping Study for Land & Water Australia’s Tropical Rivers Program

The report was requested by Land and Water Australia (LWA) as a scoping study to provide information for their new Tropical Rivers Program.

Managing fertigation technologies in citrus orchards

With recent advances in technology irrigators can now more precisely control delivery of mineral nutrients and water to the roots of perennial tree crops. These technologies, collectively referred to as fertigation, provide the opportunity to adopt and implement highly technical management programs, such as open hydroponics, that use drip irrigation to deliver a balanced mixture of nutrients and water. This research bulletin provides an overview of a project, funded by the National (more)...

Using Recycled Water for Irrigation

An overview of the issues, opportunities and challenges.

All Australians, including farmers and urban consumers, are increasingly aware that our water is both scarce and precious. In recent years, water management has been one of the nation’s most important electoral issues. Water restrictions have limited urban users’ ability to water gardens and wash cars, while irrigators across the country have experienced often drastic cuts in water allocations, affecting food availability and prices. There are two main approaches to (more)...

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Do natural ecosystems benefit from the management of Weeds of National Significance?

Weeds pose a significant threat to natural ecosystems in Australia and consequently large quantities of resources are spent each year to manage them. Amongst these, species identified as Weeds of National Significance (WoNS) are particularly important. The capacity of weed management programs to contribute to biodiversity conservation in Australia has not been comprehensively assessed. This publication is one of a suite of 13 produced as part of a folder showcasing (more)...