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Upper Haughton Water Balance Study (UHWBS)
The Upper Haughton grower’s project, funded by the Sugar Research and Development Corporation (SRDC), aims to improve the knowledge of growers and other agencies to understand and better manage groundwater. This project is providing growers with valuable information, giving them considerable insight into the factors causing the ground water rise in the area.
At a recent steering committee meeting the group contemplated actions that they and other growers can take to minimise the loss of water to the underlying aquifer. Some examples are:
Andrew Durick of AGE Consultants uses the results to create models which are then presented and discussed at meetings. Data collection and interpretation is continuing and it is hoped that this information will give clear directions for future actions. |
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Project Reports
January 2009
The lysimeters at Russel Jordan’s property were hooked up to the tower and vacuum pump to make them fully functional on 16/12/08. Russel will monitor the lysimeters over the coming months and record the deep drainage results. The lysimeters at the Setter’s property will have the vacuum tower installed in the next month. The CSR lysimeters were not installed last year due to wet weather and unavailability of the drilling rig. We will try to find a suitable site for these in a plant cane block in the coming months depending on the weather.
Russel is continuing to monitor the piezometers on a 2-4 week basis. The groundwater level has continued to drop with the dry weather experienced up to the end of December. The groundwater behaviour is variable between sites but most piezometers have returned to similar or slightly higher levels than at the same time last year. Three of the Odyssey data loggers have stopped working and will be replaced. The pieometers will continue to be monitored over the wet season and will help to give us a better idea of the behaviour of the groundwater in the area.
November 2008
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The second set of lysimeters were installed on Garth and Coleen Setter's property on 10/10/08. The soil will be allowed to settle around the lysimeters over the coming weeks before installing the vacuum towers. The lysimeters on Russel Jordan and Garth Setter's properties will have the vacuum towers installed in the coming weeks, making then fully operational. We now have lysimeters installed in two different soil types for the Upper Haughton Area. The third and final set will be installed on CSR property next week. Russel is continuing to monitor the piezometers on a 2-4 week basis. The overall trend is that groundwater levels in the project area have risen on average about 0.5m closer to the surface since the same time last year, but there is considerable variation between locations. There was a sharp rise in groundwater after the flood with most of the piezometers slowly dropping since the flood. Groundwater is now closer to the surface at 70% of the locations, unchanged at 20% of locations and lower at 10% of locations. Electrical conductivity also shows considerable variation between piezometers. Some have dropped significantly since the flood event, while others have remained steady or slightly increased. 33% are lower, 45% are unchanged and 22% are higher than when sampling started. However, it is difficult to show long term trends because we have only been monitoring the piezometers for 18 months. Further monitoring over the coming years will provide a better understanding of the groundwater behaviour. The groundwater model is still being completed by AGE. This has been further delayed by staffing issues at their end. Andrew Durick has indicated it may not be available until December. |
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September 2008
The first of the three sets of lysimeters was installed on 18/07/08 at Russell Jordan’s farm. A video of the process can be viewed here. The other two sets will be installed after the blocks have been harvested. This is expected to be some time in the next month.
Toni Anderson from BSES evaluated the last irrigation Russell applied to the lysimeter block using SIRMOD. The results were very good with an application efficiency of around 83%. Toni will run further evaluations later in the season.
Russell is continuing to monitor the piezometers on a 2–4 four week basis. Thanks to the efforts of Adam and Jude, the locations of the piezometers and latest readings can be viewed on the BBIFFMAC website.
The overall trend is that groundwater levels in the project area have risen 0.5 – 1.0m closer to the surface since the project began in February 2007, but there is considerable variation between locations. Groundwater is now closer to the surface at 70% of the locations, unchanged at 20% of locations and lower at 10% of locations. However, because we have only been monitoring these piezometers for 18 months, it is difficult to show long term trends.
The groundwater model is still being completed by AGE. AGE has had some staffing issues which have delayed completion of the model. Hopefully it will be ready by the end of the month.
The report for milestone 6 of the project was submitted to SRDC on 04/09/08.
July 2008
The installation of the first of the three sets of lysimeters was done last Friday at Russell Jordan’s farm. The lysimeters were installed in a block of ratoon cane after harvest. The drilling of the cores took much longer than expected due to very compact soil, but was otherwise successful.
The new pipes have been installed under the Upper - Haughton Road to allow better drainage of the gum holes. The next step is for Sunwater to dig a deeper drain connecting the new pipes to the main drain. When the trench was dug to accommodate the new pipes it intersected a layer of coarse sand containing a shallow aquifer. This water had to be pumped out of the trench to allow the pipes to be laid. When the deeper drain is connected to the pipes it will be interesting to see what effect this has on groundwater levels in the area.
The groundwater model is still being completed by AGE. Hopefully it will be ready by the end of July.
May 2008
Rob Lait and Andrew Durick the consulting hydrogeologists presented their latest progress on the development of a groundwater model for the project to the steering committee on 31/03/08. The original proposal was to utilise the model being developed by DNRW, however this model is still being developed and isn’t available for this project. AGE will therefore develop an independent model for this project. It should be completed by the end of June and can be used to predict the effect on groundwater levels of changing land uses, irrigation practices, groundwater pumping strategies etc. This will help to formulate recommendations to improve the management of irrigation and groundwater in the project area. To help with the development of the model, additional information was required on:
- Yield figures from the mill/s (tonnes of cane per hectare)
- Metered surface water irrigation (ML/quarter or /year)
- Metered groundwater irrigation (ML/quarter or /year)
- Climate (rainfall and evaporation)
- Soils mapping
- Vegetation coverage (with time)
The additional yield, climate, soils and vegetation data has now been supplied. I am working with Sunwater to provide the water use data and BDTNRM for additional vegetation coverage data. Hopefully we will have this by the end of the month.
Russell Jordan is continuing to monitor the piezometer levels on a fortnightly basis. This information has been forwarded to Rob Lait for inclusion in the model.
Two of the three lysimeter sites have been selected with the third to be finalised this month. The lysimeters will be installed in the ratoon blocks after harvest.
The report for Milestone 5 was submitted to SRDC on 07/04/08 and has been accepted for payment. A copy of the report is attached. The next milestone report is due on 01/09/08.
Rob Lait gave a presentation on the planned groundwater model at the field day at Chris Hesp’s on 01/04/08. Roy Young and myself spoke about the project to a bus load of ASSCT conference delegates who visited on 01/05/08.
March 2008
Russell Jordan commenced monitoring the piezometers in January. Russell replaces Trevor Haller. The wet weather made access to the piezometers very difficult so only three readings have been taken this year. I accompanied Russell on a round of the piezometers to familiarize myself with their locations and data collection process. To read all of the piezometers takes between 6 and eight hours depending on conditions. Ground water levels have generally risen 0.5 – 1.0m as a result of the February rain and flooding.
A milestone worth $52,850 was due on 01/03/08. A large proportion of this milestone was reporting on project review and community meetings. The meetings were scheduled in February, but were cancelled due to the flooding. Rob Lait and Andrew Durick the consultants who are the key note speakers at these meetings, were not available again until the end of March. As a result we were unable to meet the milestone deadline and SRDC have extended it to 07/04/08. The meetings have been rescheduled for 31/03/08 and 01/04/08. Rob and Andrew will present their latest findings and outline the future work which needs to be done.
Russell Jordan presented an overview of the project at the “Focus on water“ meeting in Clare in February and I gave a project update at the Upper Haughton CPI meeting in March.
Over the next month the three lysimeter sites will be finalised and the lysimeters installed when conditions are suitable.