IT is always encouraging to see international delegates show a keen interest in projects happening in Australia, and even more encouraging when they do it to learn from our state-of-the-art technological advances.
Recently, 10 Iraqi senior officials visited Shepparton to view the Goulburn Murray Irrigation District’s modernised water-delivery network in a bid to learn ways to rebuild their ancient irrigation system.
The group of delegates spent three days in the Shepparton region visiting several sites including Peter Hall’s orchard at Ardmona. They also visited the Central Goulburn Channel no 6 at Merrigum/Ardmona Road, Merrigum where 3.5km of channel was remediated using high-density polyethylene (HDPE) to save 408ML of water.
Connections Project director, Frank Fisseler said, “Iraq now faces the major task of rebuilding their irrigation system, managing severe salinity problems and responding to significant water shortages caused by developments in neighbouring countries and climate change.”
The group was very interested in Connections Project successes such as Total Channel Control, replacing manual regulators with automated regulators, lining channels with plastic or geosynthetic clay and more accurate metering.
“It was humbling to share our experiences with some of Iraq’s leading engineers and officials whose culture is based on thousands of years of irrigation,” Mr Fisseler said.
“With the Connections Project now nearing completion of this state-of-the-art irrigation system that is the lifeblood of our agricultural sector is gaining attention on the world stage.”
