An Extension education program to help water districts conserve water and operate more efficiently: Introduction

Texas Alliance of Groundwater Districts

Quarterly Meeting

Austin, Texas

February 26, 2014

Gabriele Bonaiti, PhDExtension Program Specialist

Irrigation District Engineering and Assistance Program, IDEA (2009-2012)

Water District Program (2013)

Department of Biological and

Agricultural Engineering (BAEN)

College Station, Texas

Outline

1) BAEN Extension education priorities

2) Examples of past projects with AgriLife

3) Water District Program definition and initial steps

1) BAEN priority on GCD

2) Examples of past projects (IDEA)

I collaborated with:◉ irrigation districts, Municipal utility districts, Water control and

improvement districts (RGBI)◉ river authorities (LCRA)◉ Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture, and Ministry of Water Resources

(USAID)

I conducted mostly demonstration projects

Geographic Information System (GIS) support◉ Training◉ Mapping◉ GIS structure recommendations◉ Analysis

Impact of urbanization

Rating

Rapid Intervention Program (USAID):

◉ Head and drainage problems

◉ Structures and canals condition and seepage

◉ Irrigation scheduling

0

250

500

750

0

550

1,100

1,650

Spill

loss

es (

acft

), ra

infa

ll (in

*100

)

Irrig

ation

are

a (a

cres

)

Irrigation

Spill losses

Rainfall

• Current flows are shown (updated every 15 minutes)

• Critical water levels are highlighted in yellow and red

Database management

Calibration for flow

y = 1.0197x - 0.513R² = 0.9943

-10

10

30

50

70

-10 10 30 50 70

Cal

cula

ted

flow

(cfs

)

Measured flow (cfs)

Cq = 0.70

Modeling crop water requirements

USDA-ARS laboratory, Bushland, TX

Crop

Soil

Rainfall

Irrigation need

Definition

◉ Extension education program to help Water Districts conserve water and operate more efficiently

◉ Water Districts: irrigation districts, groundwater districts, river authorities, Municipal utility districts (MUDs), Water control and improvement districts (WCIDs), and Special utility districts (SUDs)

◉ Work with: County Extension Agents and Water District personnel

◉ Objective: define needs and opportunities, develop cooperative projects, offer training and technical assistance

◉ Field of expertise: management of canal systems, irrigation scheduling, hydrological and crop growth modeling, flow metering and monitoring, water quality improvement, Geographic Information System (GIS) and data management, web-based information technologies, water rights

3) Water District Program

Initial steps◉ GIS training (basic, advanced)

◉ WebGIS demonstration projects

◉ http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=90a6fc461abd48aba3f1a66f33357f40

◉ Test map (Pineywoods GCD)

Irrigation District Engineering and Assistance Program (IDEA) website:

http://idea.tamu.edu

Water District Program

http://baen.tamu.edu/faculty/gabriele-bonaiti/

email: gbonaiti@ag.tamu.edu

For more information: