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The National Program for Sustainable Irrigation was a unique collaboration as it involved governments, irrigators, water providers and researchers from across Australia. It covered every aspect of irrigation from dam management and water delivery, through on-farm management, to sustainable landscape environmental measures

The National Program for Sustainable Irrigation was a unique collaboration as it involved governments, irrigators, water providers and researchers from across Australia. It covered every aspect of irrigation from dam management and water delivery, through on-farm management, to sustainable landscape environmental measures

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In many regions of Australia there can be gaps between scientific community and general public understanding of water management issues. One such region is the Ord River, where a framework for working together is being constructed.

The report is a brief study and interpretation of the publicly known principles and theories of Open Hydroponics (OH). Scientific validation of the principles of OH, productivity gains from OH and in-field assessment of the practicality of OH was not a part of this study. Published information on OH was reviewed, however very little published information was available and therefore a considerable amount of information was also sourced from OH public presentations, OH seminars, personal field visits to OH orchards and communications with various OH consultants.

Irrigated farm businesses currently face a number of problems--reduced water allocations and river flows, increased climate variability, and economic pressures. In order to remain profitable and increase the productivity of water supplies, urgent action is required.

The National Program for Sustainable Irrigation is a collaboration between 16 investment partners including irrigator groups, water authorities, state government agencies, Research and Development Corporations and the Australian Government. This is their strategic plan for the period indicated which provides an overview of the vision, mission, objectives and values of NPSI.

During Phase I of the project "Assessment of Ecological Risk Associated with Irrigation Systems in the Goulburn Broken Catchment" (Cottingham et al., 2001) adverse changes to the abundance and diversity of native fish and the occurrence of cyanobacterial (or blue-green algal) blooms were identified as priority ecological issues to be further investigated in Phase II of the project. Investigations have now been carried out to further assess the risks associated with these two issues.