Academic literature on the topic 'Water efficiency Victoria'

A study was conducted to look at water use efficiency and profitability on an irrigated dairy farm in northern Victoria. For this case study farm, an economic evaluation was performed for various development options that could result in higher water use efficiency, increased profit, and meet the farm owners' objectives. Water use efficiency was defined as the amount of milk (kg milk fat plus protein) produced from pasture per megalitre of water (irrigation plus effective rainfall).The case study farm data indicated that between 1995–96 and 1998–99 there was no simple, direct association between water use efficiency and profitability. The development options considered included building a new dairy and increasing herd size and either increasing the area of irrigated pasture or intensifying on the existing irrigated area. The likely water use efficiency and economic efficiency were estimated for the various development options. The development budgets suggested that intensifying on the existing irrigated land was the most attractive option, if the predicted improvements in water use efficiency were achieved. This option had an internal rate of return of 64%, broke even after 5 years and was compatible with the objectives of the farm owners.Options that resulted in simultaneous increases in water use efficiency, profitability and labour efficiency appear to be more likely to be adopted than options that focus solely on increasing water use efficiency.

Water use efficiency (WUE) in irrigated dairy systems has been defined, in this paper, as the amount of milk (kg milk fat plus protein) produced from pasture per megalitre of water (irrigation plus effective rainfall). A�farm survey was conducted for the 1997–98 and 1998–99 seasons in the Goulburn Irrigation System (GIS) and Murray Irrigation System (MIS) when the irrigation water allocated to irrigators in the GIS was low (100–120% of water right compared with the MIS which was 130 and 200% of water right). These data were analysed in conjunction with information collected on the same farms in the 1994–95 and 1995–96 seasons when the irrigation water allocated to irrigators in both systems was above 150% of water right (Armstrong et al. 1998, 2000). The aim of the survey was to determine if the management decisions made by dairy farmers in seasons of low irrigation water allocations had an impact on WUE.Milk production averaged across the 2 irrigation systems increased significantly over the 5-year period (57 540–75 040 kg milk fat + protein per farm). Over the same period the amount of irrigation water applied (GIS�7.6 ML/ha, MIS 9.2 ML/ha) and the milking area (GIS 72 ha, MIS 73 ha) remained constant. The amount of concentrates fed per cow (GIS 650–1100 kg DM, MIS 480–860 kg DM) and per farm (GIS 119–228 t DM, MIS�72–157 t DM) increased, but pasture consumption (GIS 8.9–9.5 t DM/ha, MIS 9.1–9.7 t DM/ha) did not increase significantly over the survey period. Therefore, the increase in milk production appeared to come primarily from an increase in supplementary feeding rather than an increase in pasture consumption, resulting in no significant change in WUE in either system (GIS 66 kg milk fat + protein/ML, MIS 61 kg milk fat + protein/ML).The survey results indicate that despite varying water allocations in the 2 major irrigation systems in northern Victoria, milk production on farms in both systems increased while changes in WUE could not be detected by the methods used. This suggests tactical options to increase WUE in response to short-term changes in water allocation were either difficult to implement or not a priority in a business sense.

Abstract Buildings require a significant quantity of energy and water during their operation. Solar water heaters and rainwater tanks have become increasingly common to reduce the demand for fossil-fuel based energy and mains water within buildings. Since 2006, the Victorian Building Authority has required either a rainwater tank or solar water heater to be installed in any new house built in Victoria, Australia. This research analyses the trend in adoption of these two systems using data from building permits issued from 2006 to 2019. This shows that despite an initial preference for rainwater tanks, solar water heaters have been the preferred choice. This preference was found to be greatest for projects costing from $200k-$600k and for allotment areas smaller than 500 m2. Preference for rainwater tanks tended to increase in line with an increase in project cost and allotment area, and this preference was found to be most common in metropolitan areas. This study provides insight into the opportunities for further adoption of solar water heaters and rainwater tanks, including using information at the LGA level to develop specific business opportunities or to inform policy, such as alternative water efficiency solutions for households where allotment area may limit rainwater tank adoption.

A survey of 170 randomly selected, irrigated, dairy farms in northern Victoria and 9 in southern New South Wales was conducted to examine and benchmark the key factors influencing water-use efficiency. Water-use efficiency was defined as the amount of milk (kg milk fat plus protein) produced from pasture per megalitre of water (irrigation plus effective rainfall). Information on water-use, milk production, supplementary feeding, farm size and type, pasture management, and irrigation layout and management was collected for each farm by personal interview for the 1994–95 and 1995–96 seasons. The farms were ranked in the order of water-use efficiency with the average farm compared with the highest and lowest 10% of farms. The range in water-use efficiency was 25–115 kg milk fat plus protein/ML, with the highest 10% averaging 94 kg/ML and the lowest 10% averaging 35 kg/ML. The large range in water-use efficiency indicated potential for substantial improvement on many farms. The high water-use efficiency farms, when compared with the low group: (i) produced a similar amount of milk from less water (387 v. 572 ML) (P<0.05), less land (48 v. 83 ha) (P< 0.05) and a similar number of cows (152 v. 143 cows); (ii) had higher estimated pasture consumption per hectare (11.5 v. 5.5 t DM/ha) (P<0.01) and per megalitre (1.0 v. 0.5 t DM/ML) (P<0.01); (iii) had higher stocking rates (3.2 v. 1.8 cows/ha) (P<0.01); (iv) used higher rates of nitrogen fertiliser (59 v. 18 kg N/ha.year) (P<0.05) and tended to use more phosphorus fertiliser (64 v. 34 kg P/ha.year) (P<0.10); (v) used similar levels of supplementary feed (872 v. 729 kg concentrates/cow); (vi) had higher milk production per cow (396 v. 277 kg fat plus protein) (P<0.05); and (vii) directed a higher proportion of the estimated energy consumed by cows into milk production (53 v. 46%) (P<0.05). The survey data confirmed that irrigated dairy farm systems are complex and variable. For example, the amount of feed brought in from outside the milking area varied from 0 to 74% of the estimated total energy used by a milking herd. There was a large range in the level of supplement input amongst the farms in the high water-use efficiency group, and in the low water-use efficiency group. This indicates that the management of the farming system has a greater impact on the efficiency of water-use on irrigated dairy farms, than the type of system. The data from the survey provide information for individual farms, a measure of the water-use efficiency of the industry, and an indication of the quality of regional land and water resources.

Efficient and accountable management of water resources in Northern Victoria has become a critical issue for the future of irrigation, communities and the environment, both north and south of the Great Dividing Range. To increase efficiencies and enhance accountability for water resource use, the Victorian Government is investing $1 billion through the Northern Victoria Irrigation Renewal Project (NVIRP) to upgrade ageing irrigation infrastructure across the Goulburn-Murray Irrigation District. The upgrade is expected to generate an additional 225 GL of water that will be distributed equally between irrigators, the environment and Melbourne. Whilst there are significant potential benefits for the environment as a whole from the water savings initiatives, there may also be adverse impacts from altering the hydrology of the diverse array of wetlands and rivers which are directly linked to the irrigation delivery network. The NVIRP Environmental Referrals process has investigated these potential impacts and identified ten wetlands and four rivers of high environmental value that require the development of environmental watering plans. These plans are the primary means by which the NVIRP commitment to ‘no net environmental loss’ will be achieved and assets of high environmental value will be protected. Three Environmental Watering Plans (EWPs) were completed prior to the operation of NVIRP works in the 2009-2010 irrigation season. These are for Johnson Swamp, Lake Elizabeth and Lake Murphy. The paper will describe the development of the Lake Elizabeth EWPs by the North Central Catchment Management Authority (NCCMA), within the context of uncertain climatic conditions, the recent long drought and the need to demonstrate accountability and efficiency in the use of a scarce and finite resource.

Water use efficiency (WUE) and response of grape vines (Vitis vinifera L. cvs. ‘Cabernet Sauvignon’, ‘Merlot’, and ‘Viognier’) to a particle film treatment (PFT) under varying levels of applied water were evaluated in Victoria, Australia, and southwestern Idaho. Vines that received the least amount of water had the warmest canopy or leaf surface temperature and the lowest (more negative) leaf water potential, stomatal conductance (gS), transpiration (E), and photosynthesis (A). Vines with plus-PFT had cooler leaf and canopy temperature than non-PFT vines; however, temperature difference resulting from irrigation was greater than that resulting from PFT. In well-watered vines, particle film application increased leaf water potential and lowered gS. Point-in-time measurements of WUE (A/E) and gS did not consistently correspond with seasonal estimates of WUE based on carbon isotope discrimination of leaf or shoot tissue. The response of vines with particle film to undergo stomatal closure and increase leaf water potential conserved water and enhanced WUE under non-limiting soil moisture conditions and the magnitude of response differed according to cultivar.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the sensitivity of economic efficiency rankings of water businesses to the choice of alternative physical and accounting capital input measures. Design/methodology/approach Data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to compute efficiency rankings for government-owned water businesses from the state of Victoria, Australia, over the period 2005/2006 through 2012/2013. Differences between DEA models when capital inputs were measured using either: statutory accounting values (historic cost and fair value), physical measures, or regulatory accounting values, were scrutinised. Findings Depending on the choice of capital input, significant variation in efficiency scores and the ranking of the top (worst) performing firms was observed. Research limitations/implications Future research may explore the generalisability of findings to a wider sample of water utilities globally. Future work can also consider the most reliable treatment of capital inputs in efficiency analysis. Practical implications Regulators should be cautious when using economic efficiency data in benchmarking exercises. A consistent approach to account for the capital stock is needed in the determination of price caps and designing incentives for poor performers. Originality/value DEA has been widely used to explore the role of ownership structure, firm size and regulation on water utility efficiency. This is the first study of its kind to explore the sensitivity of DEA to alternative physical and accounting capital input measures. This research also improves the conventional performance measurement in water utilities by using a bootstrap procedure to address the deterministic nature of the DEA approach.

The dairy industry is a major user of water in northern Victoria and southern New South Wales. Water is typically applied to pasture using the border-check irrigation system. The border-check system is largely gravity driven and thus energy efficient. However, deep drainage can potentially be high because the system allows only limited control over the depth of water applied in each irrigation event. For this reason, heavy soils are regarded as the most suitable for border-check irrigation. This study quantified net deep drainage (deep drainage less capillary rise) under border-check irrigated pasture on a Goulburn clay loam soil. Additionally, the study investigated the extent to which irrigation frequency and watertable conditions influence water use, dry matter production and deep drainage. The water balance and dry matter production were monitored over 2.5 years in a lysimeter facility in northern Victoria. The Goulburn clay loam is representative of the heavier textured soils used for border-check irrigation of pasture in northern Victoria. The average measured net deep drainage was 4 mm/year. This indicates that relatively small levels of net deep drainage can be achieved under well-managed border-check irrigation on a Goulburn clay loam soil. Net deep drainage losses were greatest following winter, when rainfall exceeded pasture water use for an extended period. Increasing the interval between irrigation events resulted in reduced plant water use, infiltration of irrigation water, rainfall runoff and pasture production. However, increasing the interval did not impact on net deep drainage or water use efficiency. Depth of watertable had a relatively minor impact on the water balance.

Optimal allocation of irrigation water is a modern economic and social concern of growing importance in Australia, as well as in many other countries. The market based mechanism has been advocated in the economics literature as an efficient and effective measure for allocation of irrigation water. Water markets and water rights trading have been operating for many years aiming to improve the efficiency of water allocation in the Murray–Darling Basin (MDB) in Australia. Several stages of the Council of Australian Government's water reform agenda have been implemented. Water right and land ownership have been separated so that allocations or entitlements of water rights become transferable. Farmers can therefore trade their water rights in water markets without having to transfer their land ownership. Few empirical studies have been conducted into the efficiency and effectiveness of water markets. This study examines economic efficiency, competitiveness, and irrigators’ response to the changes of economic and non economic variables in allocation water markets in Victoria that permit trading in irrigation water rights. This study begins with an analysis of the economic theory of efficient allocation of water, the theory of goods underlying water markets, the public and private nature of these markets, along with attention of externalities, market structures and the role of natural monopolies in water industry. It provides an examination of the systems of water rights found in the literature, a discussion of the legislative basis of the water right systems that govern access to and use of irrigation water in each of Australian states and territories including the institutional arrangements shaping trade in Victorian water markets. The legislative water right in Australia is the contemporary water allocation system and governs water entitlements and allocations. Water rights are essentially a bundle of entitlements that define the rights, privileges and limitations for the use of the water of an owner. The characteristics of water rights include universality, exclusivity, transferability and enforceability. In Victoria, under the Water (Resource Management) Act 2005, new regulations were issued, and a number of major changes to the water trading landscape were made, including the creation of an environmental water reserve; the unbundling of existing water entitlements into water shares, and the creation of the Victorian water register. On a national level, the key water policies are specified in the National Water Initiative in 2004. The Water Act 2007 (Commonwealth) secures the water supply and water allocation equitably including the allocation for the riverine environment in MDB. The demand and supply for irrigated water, the markets for water rights trading and the contestability of Australian water markets is analysed. Also, the existing water market mechanisms and trading including the evolution of the markets, their structure, and the trading rules and institutional arrangements in the Murray–Darling Basin region in Australia is described. The Murray–Darling Basin region is the most active region of irrigation water trading in Australia. The relevance of the determinants of demand and supply for irrigation water and the price elasticity of demand are discussed. The auction form of water trading in the water market is also described, and the Watermove water market in Victoria is analysed. Empirical evidence on the economic efficiency of three water markets in northern Victoria is provided. The stochastic time series properties of water prices are established through statistical tests commonly used to evaluate market efficiency in financial and commodity markets. The random walks of the stochastic properties of water price time series for the three markets are tested. The results of Augmented Dickey–Fuller’s unit test, Zivot and Andrews unit root test with one structural break, and Lee-Strazicich LM unit root test with one structural break and two structural breaks suggest that the water price time series in the three markets that the water price time series are non stationary and follow random walks. The findings are very important, and prove that the three markets are efficient according to the theory of Efficient Market Hypothesis since the water prices cannot be predicted based on the available market information for traders. More conventional scrutiny of industry efficiency is achieved through measures of the size distribution of firms. The measures which include concentration ratio, Herfindahl– Hirschman index, and Gini coefficient, are applied to analyse the three markets’ concentration and competitiveness in terms of the market size, the number of traders who participated, the number of successful traders, and the quantity of water traded. These measures for the three water markets have consistent results. The outcomes of the three measures in the market structure, and the competitiveness for the three markets suggest that there are no monopolies and oligopolies in supply, and there are no monopsonies and oligopsonies in demand in the three water markets. Also, the outcomes of the analyses suggest that there are many irrigators participating in the three water markets, either as sellers or buyers, and they are price takers. However, one market is a relatively moderate concentrated market and a monopolistic competitive. The results suggest that the three water markets are between perfect competition and monopolistic competition. Finally, models of water demand for the three water markets are developed and estimated with a view to measuring the strength of price and non-price factors driving changes in the demand for irrigation water. The estimated OLS models of demand for water for the three water markets in this study suggests that the macro economic variables in relation to agriculture including the rural commodity index, the rural GDP and the rural export in Australia do not have influence on the demand for water in the three water markets. The estimated water demand models for the three water markets show that the evaporation has positive impact on the demand for water, and the water price and the rainfall have negative impact on the demand for water. The findings are consistent with the economic logic. The findings suggest that the direct explanatory variables, the water price, the rainfall and the evaporation, influence the demand for water in the three water markets, but they are water demand inelastic.

This chapter discusses the creation of imperial cities: Paris was remodelled by Napoleon III, the layout of Vienna was altered in the era of Franz Joseph, and Berlin was expanded under Wilhelm I and Wilhelm II from a Prussian into an imperial capital. In each case this meant creating broad boulevards, green spaces, and impressive buildings, but also providing clean water, efficient sewage systems, street lighting, and local transport. Monuments celebrating victories and generals were also part of the urban design. London only built a ceremonial avenue in the twentieth century. Maximilian had great plans for Mexico City based on what he had seen in Paris, Vienna, and Brussels, while Pedro II built Petrópolis, a summer residence in the hills above Rio de Janeiro.

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF MICROWAVE SLOW WAVE COMB AND CERAMIC APPLICATORS FOR SOIL TREATMENT AT FREQUENCY 2.45 GHZ. G. Brodie and G. Torgovnikov University of Melbourne, 4 Water St, Creswick, Victoria 3363, Australia; e-mail: grigori@unimelb.edu.au Keywords: ceramic applicator, comb applicator, microwave, slow wave, soil microwave treatment In many cases in industry it is required to heat or treat surface layers of different material (soil, timber, concrete, plastics and so on) with microwaves (MW). Traditional MW irradiators (antennas) cannot provide heating only in the surface areas and energy penetrates deep into the material, where it decays exponentially due to normal attenuation. Therefore, energy losses, if a heating depth of 20 - 40 mm (for example to heat soil for killing weed seeds) is all that is required, are very significant. Therefore, it is required to develop special MW applicators for surface treatment to increase process efficiency. To address this problem, a slow wave (which is sometimes called a "surface wave" applicator) comb and ceramic structures, was studied. The main property of slow waves is that the energy concentration is very near impedance electrode – comb or ceramic plate surface. Previously, slow wave structures were used mostly as delay lines and as interaction circuits in MW vacuum devices, and their properties were explored only for these specific applications. The work objectives of this study were: design slow wave, ceramic and comb structure applicators for soil treatment at frequency 2.45 GHz;experimentally study the energy distribution from slow wave applicators in the soil;study of opportunities to use slow wave structures for surface soil layer heating; andrecommendations for practical use of new slow wave applicators. Comb and ceramic slab applicators for frequency 2.45 GHz operation were designed for the soil treatment on the bases of theoretical studies and computer modelling. The comb applicator was made from aluminium and the ceramic slab applicator was made from alumina (DC=9.8, loss tangent=0.0002). A 30 kW (2.45 GHz) microwave generator was used for experiments. Containers with soil were placed on the applicator surface. An auto tuner was used in MW system to provided good impedance matching of the generator and applicators (with soil on top). This resulted in practically no power reflection. The soil “Potting Mix Hortico”, with moisture content range 32-174% and density range 590-1070 kg/m3, was used for the experiments. Energy distribution in the soil was determined by temperature measuring in the soil using thermocouples, after MW heating. Distribution of temperature measuring points covered the whole volume of the soil along and across the applicator. Results of the experiments showed that the comb applicator provides maximum energy release in soil in the central vertical plane. The ceramic alumina applicator forms two temperature maximums in two vertical planes at a distance of about 40 mm from the central applicator plane and a minimum in the applicator central plane. The ceramic applicator provides better uniformity of energy distribution across the width of the applicator due to the two temperature maximums. It reduces overheating of the soil surface and energy losses. The depth of energy penetration provided by ceramic applicator is lower compared with the comb applicator. It means that the ceramic applicator provides better energy localization and more energy absorption in the soil surface layers compared with the comb applicator. To provide better uniformity of energy distribution across the ceramic applicator it is recommended to use ceramics with higher dielectric constants, such as in the range of 15-25, which will allow more energy to be released closer to the applicator surface. It will increase efficiency of MW energy use. The ceramic applicator is more effective for MW treatment of the soil surface areas and is recommended for practical use in machines for thermal treatment and sterilization of surface layers of the soil and other materials.