Inflo eNewsletter

Invitation to participate in urban irrigation research

Urban irrigation has borne the brunt of water restrictions across Australia's cities and towns. This has occurred at a significant cost as out lined in a CRC report on Irrigation of Urban Green Spaces. To provide an alternative management option for urban irrigation, Dr Bhakti Devi developed a new tool for rationally assessing urban irrigation during her PhD. WASP has subsequently been developed into an online decision-supporting tool for developing policies and management protocols for sustainable irrigation of urban landscapes.

Bhakti, is now looking to develop a WASP research project to experimentally validate reliable and robust irrigation water requirements for various urban landscapes, located in different soil-climate zones across Australia.

Urban irrigators, local councils and urban water utilities from all across Australia are invited to register their interest in participating in this cutting edge urban irrigation research. Research participation will involve sharing water use, irrigation system, landscape, soil and weather data and where feasible undertaking to periodically monitor and report on water use and landscape outcomes for controlled and non-controlled landscape sites over a period of 12 to 24 months.

In return for research participation, participating organisations will be able to:
• Obtain a license to use WASP online tools for 12 months;
• Develop robust and reliable benchmarks for different types of landscapes located in local soil-climate zones;
• Develop an irrigation optimisation protocol for specific landscape sites leading to sustainable irrigation and maintenance of landscapes;
• Participate in workshops that will be organised as part of the research programme to build capacity in staff to apply the research outcomes; and
• Receive information on the latest developments in urban irrigation research.

To register your interest or obtain more information on the research project or WASP©, please contact Dr Bhakti Devi, Manager, Water Strategy, City of Sydney on
02 9265 9719.

WASP

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