Abstract
The Water Administration System (WAS) is designed to be a management tool for irrigation schemes and water control offices that want to manage their water accounts and supply water to clients through canal networks, pipelines and rivers. The ultimate aim of WAS is to optimise irrigation water management and minimise management-related distribution losses in irrigation canals. This research projects focused on the implementation of the water release module of the WAS program at the Vaalharts irrigation scheme. The WAS consists of four modules that are integrated into a single program that can be used on a single PC or a multi-user environment. The four modules are an administration module, a water release module, water accounts module and a water request module. The first three modules are already implemented at Vaalharts, while module four is implemented only partially. This module links with the water request module and calculated water releases for the main canal and all its branches allowing for lag times and any water losses and accruals. To precisely calculate this water release, accurate data is needed to ensure that the correct volume of water is released into the canal network. This can be done by verifying existing data with field data. To optimise the management of the irrigation scheme the fully implemented WAS program need to be installed and running at the scheme. A series of data and calculation verifications need to be executed. The exercise will show the adequacy and correctness of the available database WAS uses to do the release calculation from. This will ensure improved management of the irrigation scheme, catchment and water resource sustainability. It is planned that the information generated from this project will be used in the compilation of integrated catchment management information system, currently underway at the Central university of Technology, Free State, South Africa. It is for this reason that all data should be verified, as trustworthy results and service through management can then be offered to the community and irrigation area.
Highlights
The slogan of the Israeli Water Directorate which states that ‘...no man may waste a single drop of water that another man may turn into bread...’ could be applied to the current situation in South Africa
At the beginning of the project the first three modules were implemented on the scheme while the 4th, the water release module, was still outstanding
The Water Administration System (WAS) has already been implemented on a number of other irrigation schemes in South Africa with satisfactory results
Summary
The slogan of the Israeli Water Directorate which states that ‘...no man may waste a single drop of water that another man may turn into bread...’ could be applied to the current situation in South Africa. South Africa is considered a waterscarce country (Ayoda, 1988). Water restrictions and the scarcity of water in South Africa have taught us to use water sparingly from an early age. The National Water Act, Act 36 of 1998 (South Africa, 1998a) emphasises this issue of water usage and constantly refers to conservation control and equitable distribution of water (South Africa, 1998b). Conferences, symposiums and workshops play a vital role in defining and planning sustainable resource management (Cousens, 1998). Water resources need to be controlled by a well-organised managerial body, which will form the basis for effective distribution of the resource
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