Roll out of Hydronet and eLEAF water auditing software across South Africa
The Department of Water and Sanitation of South Africa has signed a long-term contract with the South African Weather Service, HydroNET and eLEAF to rollout their Water Auditing Application to support compliance monitoring of irrigated water use.
The software has been developed in cooperation with Inkomati Usuthu Catchment Management Agency (IUCMA). The use of this application by the agency has already led to a significant reduction of water use by farmers for irrigation.
The Department of Water and Sanitation has now decided to rollout the Water Auditing Application throughout South Africa.
Dashboard shows the real-time water use per farm location and in this example the blue line indicates that more water has been used for irrigation than allocated (horizontal red dotted line).
Regulated water use
The recent droughts in South Africa have put an enormous pressure on the available water resources. Of the available water, 63 percent is used for irrigation. To regulate water use, a water licensing system is introduced in the National Water Act of South Africa.
Water resources managers have a major challenge to monitor compliance, since water meters are not available for most farms.
Showing water use for irrigation
The Water Auditing Application is a low-cost compliance monitoring solution to identify farms that use more water for irrigation than allowed.
This information enables water managers to warn and raise awareness among farmers by showing them their water use compared to others.
Dashboard shows the water use in the whole catchment (blue line) and the amount of water located to farmers (horizontal red dotted line).
Comparing permitted volumes
The Water Auditing application is based on weather information from the South African Weather Service and eLEAF’s PiMapping technology to calculate the volume of water used per irrigated field.
This volume is automatically compared with the permitted volumes, flagging non-compliance. For water resource managers the application offers easy access and insight into the irrigated water use per field, farm, catchment, district or any other management.
It highlights areas with excessive water use, supporting water managers to optimize their permit enforcement strategies.
All this information is available via online dashboards through the HydroNET platform, an award-winning decision support system for water managers.
The combination of eLEAF’s PiMapping technology and HydroNET Software as a Service (SAAS) solution ensures that the Water Auditing application can be implemented anytime, anywhere at any place in the world.
Presentation at Stockholm World Water Week
The development of the Water Auditing Application has been supported by the ‘Business Applications’ programme of the European Space Agency (ESA) commissioned by the Netherlands Space Office (NSO). The Water Auditing application will be presented at the ‘African Spatial Delight’ session at the Stockholm World Water Week on August 29 from 11:00 to 12:30.
This news item was originally published on the website of Hydrologic.
(Top photo: Istock)
Read also on this website
● HydroNET Water Control Room wins prestigious Partner for Water award 2017, 20 April 2017
● First HydroNet control room for Inkomati-Usuthu catchment management agency, South Africa, 4 October 2016
● Stockholm water week 2012: satellite farming, fancy smart phones and green water credits, 29 August 2012
● Country: South Africa
More information
HydroLogic
Amersfoort, the Netherlands
+31 33 475 35 35
www.hydrologic.com
E-Leaf
Wageningen, the Netherlands
+31 317 729 000
www.eleaf.com