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Irrigation Auditing
Knowing how your irrigation system is performing is vital to reducing water use and improving the standard of your sportsfield, golf course, racetrack, park or garden. In the past if it was wet, it was good enough. But now, especially under water restrictions, we need to know exactly how much water is being applied and where it's going. Many irrigation systems have very low uniformity and these are the ones where water is wasted and sportsturf and gardens are failing.
Even if you are considering a solution not directly involving the irrigation system it is critical that you know the amount and uniformity of water delivered by the irrigation system.
For example, when designing a stormwater harvesting facility its important to know the expected weekly water demand, the required flow rates and pressures, as well as any possible future upgrades. When fixing a drainage problem, it is sensible to check whether the problem is made worse by, or perhaps due entirely to a substandard irrigation system. When changing the layout or landscape design of a park or golf course, it is important to assess the capabilities of the the existing irrigation system and how any changes would affect performance.
Hydrozone is very skilled in conducting irrigation audits. Anyone who has tried a basic audit knows that it is fiddly, can take a long time and requires a lot of data to be collated and summarised. Hydrozone has developed a streamlined procedure that ensures all the required data is collected and processed in the minimum possible time.
What is an irrigation audit?
It is a systematic measurement of the the performance of an irrigation system. Usually only a sample of the system is measured in detail.
The data gathered includes:
- emmitter spacing and layout
- emmitter type and model
- nozzle sizes
- maintenance problems
- pressures at the emmitters and within the delivery system
- flow rates at the emmitters
- precipitation rates using catch cans
- scheduling practices
From this data a number of key performance standards can be calculated. The most important of these are:
- average precipitation rate
- distribution uniformity
- typical application depth
- flow rates for stations and the whole system
While these numbers are very important, the auditing process also allows us to build a picture of more subtle aspects such as:
- overall reliability and weak "links" in the system
- variations from the original system design
- variation in plant health and vigour
- suitability of scheduling decisions, i.e. irrigation runtimes and intervals
How is this information used?
The results from the Irrigation Audit are combined with other data collected during the Stocktake including: soils, plant type and conditions and user expectations. Together, this information is used to identify where the biggest problems are, what's causing them and how they might be fixed. From there alternative Solutions are investigated and the costs and benefits are analysed. Implementation of the solutions invariably involves using the audit results to fine tune the operation and maintenance of the irrigation system.
