Quick Dips

Sun Shines on Irrigation Project

Lincoln University students are harnessing the Sun to beat it at its own summertime game of drying up farmland streams. Final year BE(Hons) students in Natural Resources Engineering are using solar-powered data loggers to make hourly water flow and rainfall readings to evaluate catchment runoff in a stream targetted for the "harvesting" and storage of water ahead of the summer drought.

Projects currently under way are practical, "real life" applications of the knowledge and skills taught in class, involving hydrological analyses of the catchments yielding the water source, the design of diversion and storage structures, the estimation of water requirements, the design of the irrigation system, selection of equipment, and an evaluation of the cost-benefit of the development from the farmers' point of view and in the context of sustainable land use.