Agricultural Water Conservation Demonstration Initiative

The Agricultural Water Conservation Demonstration Initiative (ADI) project integrates state-of-the-art irrigation water distribution network control and management, and on-farm irrigation technology and management systems in a large-scale demonstration of cost-effective technologies that maximize surface water use efficiency from the diversion of water at the river to consumption of water by the crop.

The project will demonstrate, document, and incorporate the District's on-going conservation projects, and provide coordination between the District's staff, agricultural water users, and state and federal technical agencies.

The project includes maximizing the efficiency of flood irrigation, demonstrating the effectiveness of all major irrigation technologies, and showcasing how to implement the beneficial findings from the field demonstration sites to irrigation districts and farmers.

Demonstration projects, which account for approximately 44% of the total program cost, include activities related to both drip and flood irrigation with areas concentrating on monitoring both citrus and vegetable crops, automated measurement systems, surge irrigation techniques, and using variable speed pump controllers to optimize the on-farm demand, and development of information systems to allow water users to access their real-time water use and historic water use data via the Internet.

Public field days, workshops, and presentations are another aspect of the project and consist of organized field days and training workshops geared to transferring the demonstrated technologies from the proposed project to agricultural producers. Presentation of the results of the proposed project will be made at state water conservation conferences to facilitate statewide sharing of the results of the project.

The ADI project is sponsored by the Texas Water Development Board and is supported by an advisory committee comprised of local producers and experts in the field of irrigation. ADI has also contracted the services of Texas A&M University Kingsville, Texas Cooperative Extension Service, Delta Lake Irrigation District, and Axiom-Blair Engineering. These agencies will assist ADI with technical support, economic evaluation, and execution of the demonstration projects.