Delivering water savings to Irrigators and the environment through improved channel operations
A study conducted by the Melbourne university points to a fact that the 70% of water is wasted during the transportation of water from the source such as weirs and dams to the plant through the open channel networks.
As 90% of the irrigation industry uses open channel networks for its water distribution, the amount of water being lost is huge. The major reasons of loss being Outfalls, Poor and age old Measurement techniques, unaccounted and unknown leakages and seepages, evaporation and imprecise timing as per the crop requirement. Not to mention here the 100 year old methods and practices being used for the decision support for the distribution network system which relies heavily on manual intervention for its monitoring and control systems.
Latest development in the technologies involving various support systems have lead to innovating and creation of sustainable systems to perform in the harsh and remote environments of the irrigation industry.
The manual or motorized Sluice gates are being replaced with highly sophisticated gates such as FlumeGateTM and software control technology such as Total Channel Control® which totally automates the channel networks, both large and small and in doing so
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Eliminates the traditional outfall losses |
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Delivers water accurately to the farm |
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Provides significantly enhanced on demand service equal to that of a pipeline |
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Precisely locates and measures leakage, seepage and theft such that the losses can be rectified in the most economical manner |
The systems transforms the manually operated open channel systems from labor intensive, conservatively operated, high loss irrigation supply systems into extraordinarily responsive, flexible and efficient systems enabling irrigators to get water at the flow rate and time they require. It also brings an integrated approach to the planning and scheduling with, SCADA and mechanization strategies being adopted by the many irrigation authorities around the globe.
This modern system involves the installation of automatic control gates, communications networks and advanced control and management software to existing open channel infrastructure enabling water to be supplied close to ‘ On demand’. This system delivers significant benefits to channel managers, irrigators and the environment in many ways such as.
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On demand water supplied when required |
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Operational cost savings |
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Water loss minimized through precision control and loss detection technology |
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Accurate billing and regulatory compliance through precision volumetric measurement |
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Crop needs matched with precision water supply flow rates |
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Leads to on farm efficiency and improved production |
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Safe to operate |
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Improved environmental outcomes for salinity and water loss |
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New service levels with internet and phone ordering and confirmation |
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Minimum channel level fluctuations and gate actions |
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Pinpoint the source of leaks for repair and lining |
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Formal performance measures of customer service. |
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Total Channel control |
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Upstream |
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Downstream and distant downstream controls |
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Flow controls |
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Demand management system |
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Scheduling of water distribution |
The interface provided to enable the above have to be powerful with built in data base management for the huge amount of the data for benchmarking as well as immediate calculations. This should integrate with the objects and models in the field and should cater to the various methods such as
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Rating tables |
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Time series integration |
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Dynamic expressions involving various other data base attributes |
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Powerful and flexible alarm escalations |
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User friendly with visuals and graphics |
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WEB connectivity |
To summarise the age old channel networks with its existing set up of catering to the million of acres can be upgraded using the latest technologies, to achieve more than 80% of pipe line benefits for less than 20% of the investment.
For more details Please contact : Marketing, MEL Systems and Services Limited, 173, Devoloped Plots, Perungudi Chennai 600 096
Email : mal@melssauto.com. |
