WATERSENSE WEB BASED IRRIGATION SCHEDULING AND CLIMATE INTERPRETIVE TOOL SUPPORTS ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES APPROACH

N ADAPTIVE strategies approach will be important if agricultural industries are to manage the impact of a changing and increasingly variable climate. At this time, climate change and variability are at the forefront of discussion in most Australian cane growing districts. Predicted increased temperatures, with dryer or wetter rainfall periods, are likely to impact each district’s yield potential. Depending on location, higher solar radiation and temperature will increase water demand through higher evaporation rates. These higher rates, when coupled with lower effective rainfall, may limit yield potential and, as a consequence, increase pressure for improved management of limited, and perhaps decreasing, irrigation water resources. Higher rainfall intensities will also contribute to runoff loss and increase the potential for off-site movement of nutrients and pesticides in water and sediments leaving fields. A web based tool for optimising water management (WaterSense) that was developed through a number of projects funded by the Sugar Research and Development Corporation (SRDC), CSIRO and the Cooperative Research Centre for Irrigation Futures (CRCIF) underwent prolonged field testing during subsequent participatory research projects. WaterSense has the capability to utilise daily weather data for interpretation and recording of the impact of climatic factors on crop water use. From a climate management perspective the development of this web based tool now makes it possible to interpret the impact of specific management strategies on crop water use efficiency. In this paper, outputs from case study activities are presented to illustrate options for evaluation of crop water use efficiency as reflected by the relationship between irrigation and rainfall inputs, runoff and drainage, crop evapotranspiration (ETC) and final yield. This opportunity to use a daily water balance approach based on real time climatic data to identify potential ETC with WaterSense provides insights into specific management strategies to improve water use efficiency (WUE) by identifying deep drainage and runoff losses, which then can be converted into cane yield as WaterSense can identify the potential yield gains from higher WUE and potential water savings.