Dams

Monolayer Research

A fact sheet about research into chemical monolayers to reduce dam evaporation.

Understanding Evaporation

Right now, it is very diffi cult to accurately measure the water losses from evaporation on farm dams but a recent scoping study funded by the National Program for Sustainable Irrigation estimated the loss is as high as 7,000 gigalitres per year from Queensland’s section of the Murray-Darling Basin alone. Given that water extracted from our waterways for all purposes is around 20,000 gigalitres per annum in the whole of Australia, the potential savings from addressing evaporation losses are obviously (more)...

New Tools for Measuring Evaporation from Farm Dams

This bulletin describes the results of a modelling study of evaporation from farm dams and a ‘ready reckoner’ in the form of a spreadsheet that:

• Calculates the cost of installing an evaporation reduction system
• Calculates how much water is saved from evaporating.

Controlling evaporation losses from farm dams

As much as 40% of water stored in a farm dam can be lost through evaporation, depending on the depth of the dam and its surface area. Dam design can significantly decrease evaporation by reducing the surface area to volume ratio (deeper, narrower dams) and planting windbreaks to provide shade and reduce wind turbulence. Over the years, a number of commercial products have also been developed to minimise water losses, including floating plastic covers and chemical products that change the (more)...

The Significance of Night Time Evaporation from Irrigation Farm Dams Across Australia

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 (more)...

The Significance of Night Time Evaporation from Irrigation Farm Dams

Work commissioned by NPSI and undertaken by Matthew Hipsey from the University of Western Australia shows that night time evaporation is significant.

This report details the results of the study and will assist in improving the accuracy….

Scoping Study: Reduction of evaporation from farm dams

Evaporation reduction from farm dams in Australia is regarded as one of the few areas where there are real water savings to be made. At this stage, there are a number of commercial evaporation reduction systems available that use either a hard or polymer cover. Currently these systems are deemed to be viable (M. Durack pers. comm., 2004) for high value crops such as table grapes but are generally not financially viable for lower value crops such as sorghum or cotton. The Department of Natural Resources (more)...