Page 3725 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .


(3) Turf grass in Canberra requires about 60-650 of nett evaporation to be added as irrigation for the turf to remain healthy. If watering falls below about 450 of

nett evaporation, the grass will die and the cost of.

renovation is greater than the cost of the water.

Over the past three years more than 3700 sprinklers have been removed or deactivated, reducing the area being irrigated by more than 100 hectares.

(4) The irrigation of most of Canberras sports fields and major parks, is operated by a computerised irrigation system. This system turns off all of these sprinklers after 1mm of rain. If sufficient rain falls the system will remain off until the soil dries out.

This technology leads the world.

Irrigation on the remaining areas is controlled by conventional controllers which have to be turned off when it rains, and back on when the rain ceases.

(5) The computerised irrigation system has the capacity to turn sprinklers off in an area after 1mm of rain has fallen.

Automatic control systems are turned off after significant falls of rain, but not during light rainfall, or during short heavy showers, as the labour costs rapidly exceed the cost of the water used during that time.

3725


Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .