Agriculture Water Demand Model

The Agriculture Water Demand Model was developed to provide current and future agricultural water demands.

The Model calculates water use on a property-by-property basis, and sums each property to obtain a total water demand for the entire basin or each sub-basin. Crop, irrigation system type, soil texture and climate data are used to calculate the water demand.

Climate data from 2003 was used to present information on one of the hottest and driest years on record and 1997 data was used to represent a wet year.

Agriculture demand for water in 2003 was 18.5 cubic metres, in 1997 it was 7.5 m3. Of this, about 65% is surface water, and 35% is groundwater. With the effects of climate change, and possibile buildout of as yet unused or under-used agricultural lands, water demand for agriculture could grow to 43.7 m3.

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