National Irrigation Database

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National Irrigation Database
A national irrigation database would contain data
about...

• How much water is required, and when
• How much water was applied, and when
• How much excess water was used

...for every field in Australia
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National Irrigation Database

• A great deal of detailed data is required.
• Some data is already being collected, if only it
  was available...
• How do we get the rest of the data ?

Irrigators do the collecting
Google Maps could be the inspiration
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Existing data

• Water orders to Water Supply Authority
• Irrigation schedules calculated by irrigators
• Soil moisture measurements

If this data was also on the web it could be used
by a national database
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Google maps and Google Earth

• Defined an xml schema for GIS data.
• A data format that can be shared.
• Data in a file in this format can be shown on a
  map or aerial photograph.
• Water orders can also be read from the same file.
• A National Irrigation Database can read the same
  file.

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Irrigator sends water order to Water Supply
Authority
What happens now
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Irrigator enters order on web form
Orders via the web
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What the Water Supply Authority would see

• Paul Torzillo requires 55 Ml on 13 February
• McWilliams requires 32 Ml on 12 February

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What the National Database will see
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What the irrigator would see
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Irrigators who do not need to order water
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What the irrigator and Water Authority would see
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Web form could also calculate water requirements
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Irrigators who measure soil moisture
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What the irrigator and Water Authority would see
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Soil moisture by telemetry to Water Authority
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What the irrigator and Water Authority would see
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Using Google xml schema

• A standard format is required
• The suggested format is the xml schema used by
  Google Maps and Google Earth
• This schema defines how data should be formatted
  for GIS mapping
• XML is extremely flexible
• Standard interchange format for data on the
  internet

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Additional data

• XML is flexible - add extra data items
• Volume_Required, Date_Required
• Crop_Type, Daily_Water_Use
• Soil_Moisture_Status
• Total amount of water required by the end of the
  season

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How the system would work
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What is required - XML schema

• Required_Volume (cu m)
• Required_Date
• Current_Soil_Moisture (mm)
• Crop_Daily_Water_Use (mm/day)
• Season Total_Volume_Required (cu m)
• Crop_Type
• GPS coordinates

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What needs to be done

• 1 Web form for Irrigators to order water. Can
  also be used to calculate and post irrigation
  schedule.
• 2 Crop water use data to be available on the web
  in an agreed standard format.
• 3 Water Supply Authorities to be able to read
  and accept water orders in the agreed xml schema.
• 4 All irrigation scheduling software to output a
  schedule in the agreed xml schema.
• 5 A national irrigation database could then be
  set up that would also read the xml files.

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National Irrigation Database

• really quite simple
• and achievable

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Just calculations next...
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Calculating water required drip
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Calculating water required flood
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Calculating water required