This issue discusses the opportunities and challenges of upgrading irrigation water delivery infrastructure across Australia.

* Focus on WA * NPIRD news * A new way to save water and nutrients * National Irrigation Science Network up and running

The Goulburn Broken Catchment is known as the food bowl of Australia. It covers 2.4 million hectares and has a population of around 200,000 people (Department of Sustainability and Environment, 2005). Irrigated agriculture is a major business engine in the Goulburn Broken region, producing more than $1.2 billion at the farm gate in 2001-2002 from about 280,000 hectares of irrigated agricultural land. Investment in on-farm and processing infrastructure is about A$100 million per annum (Michael Young

The aim of the workshop was to kick off a process to develop a ten-year irrigation innovation strategy. The workshop, held in Canberra on 16 September 2008, attracted about 100 participants from a broad cross-section of the irrigation industry. It included people from urban water organisations, garden irrigation supply companies, irrigators, policy makers, researchers, manufacturers and rural water supply organisations.

Knowledge is fundamental to improving the competitiveness, responsiveness and levels of innovation that we see in industries. This research project aimed to determine how information and knowledge about water management and water use efficiency is being used and managed in irrigated cotton and grains and the key factors influencing decision making. To do this, 90 interviews of growers of cotton and grains, consultants, extension workers, government researcher officers, and irrigation

The case for maintenance of a healthy environment that supports sustainable economic activity and offers economic, social and environmental benefits, has been well argued. All stakeholders, whether farmers, governments, non-government organisations or industry in all its forms, have a crucial role in this process, as decisions and actions of stakeholders at all levels greatly affect outcomes from use of water and other natural resources. In many catchments, new approaches to the use

This report documents the numerical analysis performed for the Land and Water Australia (LWA) National Program for Sustainable Irrigation project. The significance of night time evaporation from irrigation farm dams" under contract UWA45. The objective of the present study is to further develop the numerical model DYRESM to make it applicable to irrigation farm dams and to subsequently apply it to gain insights into night time evaporation.

From humble beginings in the 1880s by individual farmers along inland rivers and, in particular, the efforts of the Chaffey brothers at Renmark and Mildura in 1887, the irrigation industries in Australia have expanded to where they now use three quarters of all water used, have a combined area of about 2.6 million hectares under irrigation and produce agricultural outputs worth over $9 billion. Irrigation industries are an integral part of many regional economies and the national economy, and, on one

* Evaporation also happens at night * Northern Australia Irrigation Futures * Decisions, decisions - new Irrigation Insights book available soon* New irrigation CD Available now: latest hydro-geophysic

Water policy in Australia is undergoing considerable and unprecedented change. Most recently, the emphasis on the sustainable management of water resources in the Murray Darling Basin has seen a shift of control from the States to the Commonwealth. The declining availability of water and the subsequent approaches taken by governments have come under increasing scrutiny from the public. Indeed, the actions associated with water policy in Australia, particularly water used for irrigated agriculture, have