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Empowering farmers with better water insights during drought

11 December 2024 · 3 min read
Researchers are creating an innovative forecasting tool to provide farmers with key information about their dam water levels, potentially influencing their on-farm planning and land use decisions.
A dam in a drying landscape, with a farm fence in the foreground

Small dams are an integral part of the farming landscape throughout Australia. Image: William - stock.adobe.com

Researchers are creating an innovative forecasting tool to provide farmers with key information about their dam water levels, potentially influencing their on-farm planning and land use decisions.

Small catchment dams are an integral part of the farming landscape in many parts of Australia. They provide water for stock, crop spraying, and domestic household use and are increasingly being recognised for their amenity and recreational value. But farm dams are vulnerable to extended dry periods, depending on geography, climate, and the design and use of the dam itself.

The interactive forecasting tool is being developed as part of a $1 million Victoria Drought Resilience Adoption & Innovation Hub (Vic Hub) project led by the Vic Hub's South-West Node lead Southern Farming Systems and includes Birchip Cropping Group (Vic Hub NW Node lead), Riverine Plains (Vic Hub NE Node lead), Food & Fibre Gippsland (Vic Hub Gippsland Node lead), and Vic Hub partner Agriculture Victoria. 

Researchers from Federation's Future Regions Research Centre (FRRC) and the Centre for eResearch and Digital Innovation (CeRDI) are leading the research team that includes members from Deakin University (Vic Hub Knowledge Broker partner), the University of Melbourne and Latrobe University (Vic Hub Capacity Building partner). The researchers have established monitoring sites across 12 dams in Victoria, with diverse characteristics, and on properties with different farming operations.

Andrew Barton, a Professor in Water Resources Engineering who is leading the research components, says the work is timely, with many regions of Victoria once again experiencing dry conditions.

"Low rainfall over the winter and spring period has not generated the inflows needed to fill many arm dams. With forecasts of above-average temperatures over the summer period, on-farm water security is now a concern to many landowners," Professor Barton said.

The tool is an interactive calculator that farmers can access from their devices via a web portal being designed and hosted by CeRDI. The project team have installed instrumentation across the 12 farm dams to better understand their hydrology and performance under different rainfall conditions. Monitoring of rain, dam water level, soil moisture, and a range of weather parameters such as humidity and solar radiation, will provide data that farmers usually don't have access to.

Monitoring equipment has been installed in consultation with the landowner, protected from stock where possible, and all cabling buried and out of the way of farm machinery.

"The project is moving to an exciting stage as we've moved from the conceptual and design part of the project to having the 12 dams actively monitored and a web-based forecasting tool ready to be tested.

"We are creating the tool for the landowner to assess the performance of their dam. If the Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting a dry seasonal outlook or even a wet outlook, the landowner can use this tool to see how their dam is going to be performing under those seasonal conditions – that's the essence of this project."

"The farmers want this tool to support them in making decisions. This could be destocking when going into a drought or whether there is merit in deepening their dam. They can look at different scenarios to assess how long their water will last through the season, for instance."

Professor Barton says the tool will give farmers easy access to the kind of information they have never had before, bundled together in an easy-to-use package.  

He says while the tool is being developed and calibrated using the 12 project dams, when complete, it will allow farmers to make a general assessment of any farm dam in Victoria. He says the type of tool – an interactive calculator with a focus on drought planning – is not currently available to farmers.

The project will complement a range of existing tools and calculators available from CeRDI, Agriculture Victoria, and elsewhere, with the farm dam forecasting tool expected to be launched in mid-2025.

"We're coming to the end of the development phase and will soon be showing the tool to our key project stakeholders to get their feedback," Professor Barton said.

"Our project partner farming groups will also be demonstrating the tool to their farmer representatives to seek feedback. I'm looking forward to hearing advice from real users about how we can make this the most useful tool possible."

"With the ongoing monitoring of our 12 dams, we'll be able to keep learning about small farm dam hydrology and make refinements for some years."

The Victoria Drought Resilience Adoption & Innovation Hub is supported with funding from the Australian Government's Future Drought Fund and is one of eight national hubs funded by the Australian Government to enhance drought preparedness and resilience through economic, environmental, and community initiatives.