In the Victorian newspapers this week there was a story about the government lining the water channels with polythene film to stop seepage. I would have thought seepage is what you want, to get more water into the soil. I thought a better solution would be to cover the open channels with something like 80% shade cloth to drastically cut down the rate of evaporation, especially seeing that in most of Australia the rate of evaporation exceeds the rate of precipitation. Is this just a case of our caring, sharing government fixing a non-existant problem whilst doing nothing about the real problem?
Cheers
Col.
Channels
Moderator: webmaster
Colin,
Its a way the politics work, for Melbourne to get the north-south pipe line they needed to show how the water was wasted. For what i have seen around my area the main channels that are being lined are the second main delivery channels. Another thing they have done to keep the country town people happy is to pull back on the water restrictions from stage 4 to stage 1. Even thou the water catchments are lower than last year and the irrigators have less allocations than the year before.
After reading Peters books, i think but maybe wrong on this but if there is less water in the ground from irrigation then the rains will be less. This is why thou Peter is pushing for more ground cover over the land so that the summer heat doesn't dry out the moisture and inturn heat the ground up for less rainfalls.
I agree with the channel linning, as also with your coverage over the top, but irrigators need to change the way they water the ground from flood irrigation to either Peters system or to have a system of pipes that let the water into the ground from underneath the soil. But most of the water that evaporates is on top of the paddocks. In some cases through summer i have heard that only 10% of the water that is used in flood irragation is seeped into the ground, this is a figure when irrigating in the hot summer days.
I have read about Egypt with the way they use salt water in sealed pipes to cool the land to produce alot more product. Which is what Peter talks about by having ground cover to keep the soil cooler but also by having the carbon build up for the next generation of plants.
Its a way the politics work, for Melbourne to get the north-south pipe line they needed to show how the water was wasted. For what i have seen around my area the main channels that are being lined are the second main delivery channels. Another thing they have done to keep the country town people happy is to pull back on the water restrictions from stage 4 to stage 1. Even thou the water catchments are lower than last year and the irrigators have less allocations than the year before.
After reading Peters books, i think but maybe wrong on this but if there is less water in the ground from irrigation then the rains will be less. This is why thou Peter is pushing for more ground cover over the land so that the summer heat doesn't dry out the moisture and inturn heat the ground up for less rainfalls.
I agree with the channel linning, as also with your coverage over the top, but irrigators need to change the way they water the ground from flood irrigation to either Peters system or to have a system of pipes that let the water into the ground from underneath the soil. But most of the water that evaporates is on top of the paddocks. In some cases through summer i have heard that only 10% of the water that is used in flood irragation is seeped into the ground, this is a figure when irrigating in the hot summer days.
I have read about Egypt with the way they use salt water in sealed pipes to cool the land to produce alot more product. Which is what Peter talks about by having ground cover to keep the soil cooler but also by having the carbon build up for the next generation of plants.
Always keep an open mind