Irrigation district sustainability

Presented at Irrigation district sustainability - strategies to meet the challenges: USCID irrigation district specialty conference held on June 3-6, 2009 in Reno, Nevada.Includes bibliographical references.Today irrigation districts across the United States face mounting challenges to maintain viable operations as facilities age, competing demands for water increase, urbanization spreads, and competition for quality employees is becoming an increasing concern. Issues commonly dealt with by irrigation districts – including weather events, actions of livestock or wildlife, and unintended impacts of human activity – may be unchanged in likelihood of occurrence, but may now represent potential for dramatically increased financial impact compared with historical episodes of similar nature. Access to real-time knowledge of conditions at key locations, and the capability to remotely operate or adjust operations of control structures at key points in the irrigation delivery system can enable an irrigation district to increase delivery efficiency and quality of service, enhance staff productivity, and respond rapidly and effectively to unexpected events. Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems that provide these capabilities are being integrated into the operation of growing numbers of irrigation districts. In most situations, availability of external funding has played the pivotal role in the feasibility for irrigation districts to consider SCADA. Reclamation's Hydraulic Investigations and Research Laboratory, together with Reclamation's Nebraska-Kansas Area Office, are working to develop monitoring and control systems that could be adopted by districts of any size which can offer affordability within normal operating budgets (i.e. reasonable acquisition and installation costs, installation, operation and maintenance performed by irrigation district staffs with minimal need for on-site technical support). This paper examines the on-going effort to develop and refine this concept through case studies of two demonstration projects in Nebraska