Water Technology supports an exciting crop water use monitoring by remote sensing project for the NSW DOI

Water Technology, eLEAF and HydroNET are excited to announce a demonstration project of the Water Auditing Application, an exciting crop water use monitoring by remote sensing application with the New  South  Wales (NSW)  Department  of  Industry  (DOI),  Lands &  Water  Division and the Natural  Resources  Access Regulator (NRAR), who will be co-funding this exciting new project.

The Water Auditing Application provides water managers with a monitoring tool that greatly enhances the effectiveness of the agency.  The dashboards shows the historical and current water use through irrigation by farmers based on satellite data from eLEAF and an innovative algorithm. The water use is compared with the water allocations to identify the farms with excessive water use. The information is then easily visualised in online dashboards. An internet connection is all the infrastructure you need.

Benefits

  • Support compliance monitoring and enforcement
  • Create awareness and reduce irrigated water use
  • Low-cost solution
  • No water meters required
  • Generate overviews per farm or per catchment
  • Supports permit enforcement strategies
  • Proven technology that can be applied anywhere in the world
  • Available online; no software installation needed

Contact Brian Jackson of Water Technology on +61 3 8526 0800 for more information.

Click here for more information on the capability as implemented in South Africa

The NSW Department of Industry and Natural Resources Access Regulator

The DOI and NRAR have jurisdiction over an area of around 810,000 km2 incorporating the majority of the Murray-Darling River Basin; Australia’s largest river basin. Monitoring of compliance with water access rules is an essential part of the NRAR’s role and the massive areal coverage makes this challenging.

To support its activities, the DOI and NRAR undertake  a  range  of  operational,  monitoring  and  inspection programs to determine and report on the level of compliance within the regulated community. To this end, the DOI is currently investigating services that use remote surveillance techniques such as earth observation. The  DOI  therefore  welcomes  the  opportunity  to  support  the  demonstration  project  where  the  functionality, (cost) effectiveness and the business model of the service can be showcased, allowing DOI to assess its suitability for local application.

As a local partner, the DOI will contribute to the demonstration project and also arrange access to existing data, research locations  and  irrigators as needed by the demonstration project team.