Water workshop on mandatory measuring

October 15 2010

News Release

Water workshop presents the challenges and opportunities
of mandatory water measuring

The challenges and opportunities of water measurement will be the focus of an IrrigationNZ workshop to be held at Methven next week.

With mandatory measuring due to come into force on November 10, the water measurement workshop programme will provide irrigators with an overview of the Government’s National Regulations.

It will also highlight the work that IrrigationNZ, in partnership with the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) and MAF, is undertaking for the development of a cost-effective and robust, national, industry led water measurement standard and associated quality assurance programme.

This involvement will ensure consistent installation and verification of water measurement throughout New Zealand that will give certainty as to the accuracy of water measurement and therefore future water management in New Zealand.
IrrigationNZ strongly supports the approval of national regulation requiring water takes to be measured as part of a wider programme to improve fresh water management.

In order to move forward and optimise water management in New Zealand water measuring is an essential part of the equation, says IrrigationNZ chief executive Andrew Curtis.
Accepting and encouraging these regulations is just another example of the proactive stance being taken by irrigators to ensure the sustainable management of the nation’s water resource.

Curtis acknowledged there is considerable cost to irrigators associated with long-term and accurate water measurement, the average quality installation costing several thousands of dollars. However water measurement also opens up opportunities for irrigators to reduce operation costs and increase production, both of which will be highlighted at the workshop.

The ‘Water Measurement’ workshop – to be held at the Methven Heritage Centre, 160 Main Street, Methven (Mid Canterbury) on Thursday October 21 gets underway at 10am.

The programme will cover the state of the play in Canterbury, Hawkes Bay and Otago with respective irrigation representatives from each of these areas addressing the workshop.

The water measurement regulation implementation package – ‘giving irrigators certainty’, will be presented by IrrigationNZ chief executive Andrew Curtis.
Blair Millar of SICON will look at cost effective tools for smart irrigation management.

The workshop will conclude with a session on harnessing the resource potential led by John Bright of Aqualinc.

The workshop is scheduled to conclude at 12 noon and be followed by the IrrigationNZ AGM and lunch

ends

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