An infrastructure management system for enhanced irrigation district planning
Date
2006-10
Authors
Chinn, Wally R., author
Schinkel, Lawrence, author
Elser, Paul, author
McGee, Dave, author
U.S. Committee on Irrigation and Drainage, publisher
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
Traditionally, the metered monitoring and quantification of water use by individual irrigators in Alberta has been almost non-existent. As the increasing competition for a limited and finite resource has become much more of a reality in some major river basins, this water management tool is now receiving much more critical attention. In response to that emerging need and a very specific water-sharing issue, a pilot water use-measuring project was devised and implemented within the concentration of just over 6,500 acres of private irrigation along the Canadian reach of the Milk River. This river basin is a unique watershed, rising within the foothills of western Montana, flowing northeastward into and across the southern-most region of Alberta and then back southeastward into northeastern Montana. It is associated with international water management agreements that are a challenge to administer effectively. A rigorous monitoring of water diversions and river flows is critical for the effective administration of the international water-sharing agreement. Of particular concern, for example, is the need to accurately quantify Canadian withdrawals of water that may have originally been diverted up-stream as American allocations. As a result, the Alberta Department of Environment has initiated a project to track instantaneous irrigation water withdrawals along the Canadian reach of the Milk River and have that information reported on a near real-time basis through a designated website.
Description
Presented at Ground water and surface water under stress: competition, interaction, solutions: a USCID water management conference on October 25-28, 2006 in Boise, Idaho.