The Australian Cotton Cooperative Research Centre through this knowledge management project aimed to develop a better understanding of the knowledge pathways being used by irrigated cotton and grain growers, consultants and support agencies. The current study focused on how cotton and grain irrigators and their consultants access information about irrigation and generate knowledge to make better irrigation decisions.

It is widely understood that irrigation development results in deep percolation past the rootzone, which recharges the groundwater. With flood irrigation, watertables often rise at around 0.5 m a year until a new equilibrium is established where the watertable fluctuates from the soil surface to around 3 m deep. A significant part of all irrigation areas in Australia are currently in this condition or approaching such equilibrium. Irrigation areas in southeastern Australia, particularly in

This Irrigation Insights information package brings together information on current equipment and techniques for measuring and monitoring soil water status, extending to their use as controllers in automatic irrigation systems. The main part of the package focuses on equipment with agents and backup within Australia. The hub of the publication is a collection of tables summarising the main product features. This enables product features to be compared quickly. As well as technical data,

This report summarise the outputs and key lessons from National Program for Sustainable Irrigation (NPSI) funded project UMO45 Delivering Sustainability through Risk Management, which was designed to achieve an improved level of adoption of ecological risk assessment and risk management methods in the Australian irrigation industry and in regulatory agencies. Adoption of risk-based approaches is considered to be vital if the industry is to achieve its

The irrigation industry is marked by not really being considered an industry' at all. Irrigators tend to identify themselves in other ways (grains or broadacre; permanent plantings, dairy, vegetables, etc.). The National Program for Sustainable Irrigation (NPSI) Phase 1 has played a substantial role in providing a forum for irrigation stakeholders to collaborate and invest in common issues impacting on the sustainability of irrigation. Advances in knowledge have been made that has led to improvements and savings at the farm and landscape scale. Research projects have delivered new tools and information specific to water re-use, plant growth, water use efficiency, precision irrigation, and irrigation community wide planning. However there remain whole areas of inquiry essential to achieving sustainable irrigation.

Approximately 65% of water extracted for irrigation in Northern Victoria and over 30% in the NSW Murray Valley is applied to pastures. In 1996, Murray Irrigation Limited (MIL) introduced a Total Farm Water Balance Policy which aimed to limit farm water use to sustainable levels and hence to reduce groundwater recharge to the district watertable. The dairy industry had some concerns with the original limit of 4 Ml per hectare and initiated

Using the 2004 ANCID/Sustainable Irrigation Travel Fellowship, David Allen conducted an international survey of over 100 geophysical instruments applicable to irrigation problems. After attending the Symposium on Application of Geophysics to Engineering and Environmental Problems in Atlanta, Georgia, USA he visited equipment manufacturers and researchers in Canada, Denmark and Sweden. The survey of equipment details and prices is to be

This document outlines an ecological risk assessment framework for the Australian irrigation industry. The objective of the framework is to provide a robust process that will assist the irrigation industry to incorporate a transparent, scientific, precautionary and ecologically sustainable approach to its management of environmental risks. The framework is catchment-based and focuses on the difficult task of assessing the risks to multiple ecological assets from multiple hazards. This

This document outlines the process followed to determine the current priority issues for a national irrigation research program.

Irrigation Futures of the Goulburn Broken Catchment 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