International gold gong for Renmark Irrigation Trust as world best for its water efficiency, quality and governance
Renmark Irrigation Trust has further modernised its water system with efficiencies that have allowed wetlands to be recreated for bird and frogs.
Images courtesy GJC Engineers and Renmark Irrigation Trust
The Riverland’s Renmark Irrigation Trust in 2018 was the world’s first irrigation area to receive gold global certification by the Alliance for Water Stewardship for best practice in water efficiency, water quality, managing water-related areas and water governance.
This global-standard first was anothr for the first irrigation trust in Australia, the first to be completely piped, and the first irrigation trust to deliver environmental water.
The South Australian Murray Irrigators organisation started the bid for the international award to recognise the water efficiency of the state’s Riverland growers for generations but also to challenge irrigators elsewhere in the Murray-Darling Basin to test their performance against a world standard. This was important because of the 2075GL (gigalitres) on-and-off-farm water efficiency and productivity aims of the Murray Darling Basin Plan agreed by the river states in 2012.
The $265 million South Australian River Murray Sustainability Program was funded by the federal government as part of the 2012 plan. This efficiency program looked to boost regional productivity and save water for the environment, including returning 40GL of water entitlements to the system by 2019.
Renmark Irrigation Trust received $16.3 million from the programme. The trust further modernised its irrigation to provide a water-on-demand rather than the previous water-on-roster system for its growers. This involved new and duplicated pipelines, booster pumps, power upgrades for the main river pump station and a telemetry and monitoring of the water flow.
Renmark Irrigation Trust started fulfilling an agreement with the commonwealth environmental water holder to deliver environmental water to rejuvenate flood plains around Renmark that had been cleared of their native trees and vegetation. Birdlife is returning with black swans breeding and frogs swarming in.
