Catchment management-model evaluation : verifying data for the implementation of the water release module of the WAS program

• Published in: Interim : Interdisciplinary Journal Vol. 4; no. 1; pp. 84 - 92
• Main Author: Benade, N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Central University of Technology, Free State 01.01.2005
• ISSN: 1684-498X

The Water Administration System (WAS) is designed to be a management tool for irrigationschemes and water offices that want to manage their water accounts and supply to clientsthrough canal networks, pipelines and rivers. The ultimate aim of WAS is to optimizeirrigation water management and minimize management-related distribution losses inirrigation canals. This research project focus on the implementation of the water releasemodule of the WAS program at the Vaalharts irrigation scheme. WAS consists of fourmodules that are integrated into a single program that can be used on a single PC, a PCnetwork system (in use currently at Vaalharts) or a multi-user environment. These modulescan be implemented partially or as a whole, depending on the requirements of the specificscheme or office. The four modules are an administration module, a water request module;water accounts module and a water release module. The first three modules are alreadyimplemented at Vaalharts, while module four is implemented only partially. This modulelinks with the water request module and calculates water releases for the main canal andall its branches allowing for lag times and any water losses and accruals. Any researcher inthis field should first understand where water comes from and how it will be utilized beforeany calculations are attempted. Only then manipulation of the release volume cancommence. To precisely calculate this water release, accurate data is needed to ensurethat the correct volume of water is released into the canal network. This can be done byverifying existing data with field data. To optimize the management of the irrigation schemethe fully implemented WAS program need to be installed and running at the scheme. Aseries of data and calculation verification needs to be executed. The exercise will show theadequacy and correctness of the available database WAS uses to do the releasecalculation from. This will ensure improved management of the irrigation scheme,catchment and water resource sustainability. It is planned that the information generatedfrom this project will be used in the compilation of an integrated catchment managementinformation system, currently underway in the school of Civil Engineering and BuiltEnvironment at the Central University of Technology, Free State, South Africa.