Innovatioin Anthology #736:
Alberta WaterSMART has now posted its final report for the South Saskatchewan River Basin Climate Change Adaption Project
With more extreme weather on the horizon, the Project looked at infrastructure demands and possible mitigation in southern Alberta.
As WaterSMART’s Mike Kelly explains, one critical area is the irrigation district.
MIKE KELLY: Contrary to popular belief, the irrigation districts really aren’t using more water. Any expansion that they do, they are doing under their current water licences and their current allocations. Their expansion is based on improving the efficiency with which they use the water. So taking water from a canal and putting it into a pipeline saves a tremendous amount of water from seepage and evaporation. And also they’re now going increasingly to what are called drop pivots. So they used to spray water up into the air to cover the crops and now they’re dropped down and they use far less water to get the same amount of moisture to the plants. So all those efficiencies enable them to use the same amount of water but get a lot more cropping off that same amount of water.
Mike Kelly says the study shows the need for major improvements in forecasting extreme weather events due to climate change.
Thanks today to the CLIMATE CHANGE AND EMISSIONS MANAGEMENT CORPORATION.
FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
Guest
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Sponsor
Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation
Program Date: 2015-12-01