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FINAL REPORT Part 1 ‐ Summary Details FINAL REPORT Part 1 ‐ Summary Details Cotton CRC Project Number: 5.09.04 Project Title: Benchmarking Water Management in the Australian Cotton Industry Project Commencement Date: 15 Nov 2006 Project Completion Date: 30 June 2008 Cotton CRC Program: Adoption Part 2 – Contact Details Administrator: Helen Kamel Organisation: Dept of Primary Industries and Fisheries Postal Address: PO Box 251, Darling Heights, Q. 4350 Ph: 07 46315380 Fax: 07 46315378 E‐mail: [email protected] Principal Researcher: Graham Harris, Principal Development Extension Officer Organisation: Dept of Primary Industries and Fisheries Postal Address: PO Box 102, Toowoomba, Q. 4350 Ph: 07 46881559 Fax: 07 46881197 E‐mail: [email protected] Supervisor: Andrew Ward Organisation: Dept of Primary Industries and Fisheries Postal Address: PO Box 2282, Toowoomba, Q. 4350 Ph: 4639‐8834 Fax: 4639‐8881 E‐mail: [email protected] Signature of Research Provider Representative: 1 of 43 Background The current drought in Australia is focussing attention on the use of water by the irrigation sector within Australia. The Cotton industry has been specifically targeted as a gross user of water. The industry needs to pull together the currently known information on how water is used by the industry and the benefits that this has for regional communities and the nation as a whole. In addition it needs to demonstrate the improvements in irrigation management that have occurred and are continuing to be implemented by the industry in response to the limited water situation that it finds itself in. At the same time it needs to be confident that it is managing water efficiently and can monitor the on-going improvement in management resulting from the R,D &E effort into improving irrigation management in the industry. The industry needs to ensure that it is implementing World's Best Practice in irrigation management and can demonstrate this to the Australian community. Objectives There were primarily two objectives to the project: 1. Collate and publish existing information on irrigation management benchmarks within the Australian Cotton industry. The following draft report was prepared: Payero, J.O. and Harris, G.A. 2007 Benchmarking water management in the Australian Cotton Industry, Cotton Catchment Communities CRC/Dept of Primary Industries and Fisheries, Toowoomba 2. Implement strategies to gather and report on cotton industry water management benchmarks in an on-going fashion to monitor performance of the industry. Two reporting products produced as a result of this project: The Water Benchmark Tool – a web-based tool hosted through the Cotton BMP website and accessible by irrigators ISID – Irrimate Surface Irrigation Database – developed to store Irrimate Surface Irrigation Evaluations and report summary information from these evaluations. Methods To address Objective 1 a draft report prepared collating the existing research and industry information on water use efficiency within the cotton industry. It can be used by the industry to document its use and management of irrigation water at the national, farm and field scale. It will present this information in context with all Australian irrigation sectors and benchmark performance with its international competitors. Research included will be that by Hearn, Constable, Keefer, Cull, Tennakoon, Milroy, Smith, Dalton and Raine together with international literature. Data will also be drawn from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Rural Water Use Efficiency Projects, Boyce Comparative Analysis and Darling Downs Irrigated Crops competitions. Objective 2 was addressed through the following activities: 2.1 The collection and reporting of water use efficiency data for as many as possible of the original 25 irrigation farms surveyed by Sunnil Tennakoon and Steve Milroy during the 1996/97, 1997/98 and 1998/99 seasons. The aim is to ascertain if their WUE has improved and what measures have been put in place since 1997 to improve irrigation management. 2.2 Development of a user-friendly database for the processing and reporting of Irrimate surface irrigation evaluations. This database can be used to report the performance of surface irrigation evaluations at the industry level into the future (whilst retaining anonymity of irrigators having had Irrimate surface irrigations performed). 2 of 43 2.3 A survey of existing users of HydroLOGIC to identify those using this software and the acquisition of this data which can be compiled on an industry basis. This could provide useful data at the field scale but will be dependent on the extent to which users have been using HydroLOGIC as a recording tool for their irrigation management. 2.4 Follow-up of growers who accessed the incentive scheme funds under the Rural Water Use Efficiency Incentive and those who participated in the Irrigator of the Year Awards to document case studies that highlight the Best Practice Management of irrigation by the industry. Similar case studies should be possible from NSW through the Advancing Water Management in NSW Project (and documented through the NPSI Knowledge Management project). 2.5 Collation of data from growers identified as having useful water management data sets through the Cotton BMP PCA process. This could involve Cotton Australia GSMs identifying the growers worth approaching by the Cotton CRC Water Team members to compile their data which can be reported at an industry level and as case studies. 2.6 Investigate the existence of Crop Competition datasets within each cotton valley and compiling this into a dataset that can be used to assess WUE in the industry. This has already been done for the Darling Downs but the existence of other similar datasets is at present unknown. Additional information may also be available from the National Cottongrower competitions conducted by the Australian Cottongrower - this will be investigated. Results Objective 1 The review Payero, J.O. and Harris, G.A. 2008 “Benchmarking Water Management in the Australian Cotton Industry” was completed and is attached at Appendix 1. Below is a summary of the review. Introduction The current drought is focussing the Australian community’s attention on the use of water by the irrigation sector. The Cotton Industry has been specifically targeted through extensive coverage in the media as a gross user of water. In response the industry needs to evaluate its current irrigation water use and management in order to respond in a factual way to this criticism and identify opportunities for further irrigation management improvements. As part of this process there is a need to collate the current information on water use by the industry and the benefits it has for regional communities and for the nation. In addition it is necessary to demonstrate the improvements in irrigation management that have occurred and are continuing to be implemented by the industry. At the same time the industry needs to be confident that it is making every possible effort to manage water as efficiently as possible and monitor the on-going improvements resulting from its past and current investments in water management R, D&E. Therefore, a benchmarking process has been initiated, which is intended to help the industry evaluate the impact of its investments in water management programs and to identify priorities for future investments. This document provides an overview of some of the benchmarking concepts, reviews some of the cotton water use efficiency data obtained in Australia and overseas, and offers guidance on improving water use efficiency. 3 of 43 Benchmarking water management Benchmarking agricultural water management, however, is a difficult process. A common way of benchmarking agricultural water management is by calculating how much “yield” is produced per unit “water”. This seems quite simple, but it can be very ambiguous and misleading since there is not widely accepted national or international standard on how “yield” and “water’ are measured and reported. The term “yield” is sometimes measured as “total dry mass” or just as “harvestable yield.” For cotton, harvestable yield is either reported as “lint” or “seed” yield. The “water” term could also mean “irrigation”, “irrigation + rain”, “irrigation + rain + soil water”, or “evapotranspiration.” The “water” term can either be measured or estimated using techniques with different levels of accuracy, and could be measured at different scales (district, farm gate, or field scale). Additional ambiguities result from the fact that rain in some cases can mean “total rain,” and in others, “effective rain,” and in some cases it is measured on site, and in others it is measured at a weather station located a long distance from the farm, which can make a huge difference. Also, irrigation in some cases means “irrigation applied”, and in others, “effective irrigation” or “irrigation infiltrated.” In addition, the ratio “yield/water” is known by different names by different people, even when calculated the same way. Terms in the literature include “water use efficiency,” “irrigation water use efficiency,” “crop water productivity,” etc. In this document, the term water use efficiency (WUE) is used, which in general is the ratio of some measure of output (usually crop yield or $) to some measure of water input (i.e. irrigation, total water, evapotranspiration). Due to the lack of a national or international standard regarding the definition and calculation of WUE, the National Program for Sustainable Irrigation launched a consultation
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