Fairview and Springwater forest and fodder plantations monitoring program design, construction and operation

Specifications

• Client: Confidential Client
• Scope:

  Design, installation and operation of a whole-of-water cycle approach to irrigated CSG water monitoring for management, environmental compliance and research to support adaptive management including:

  - Manual and automated monitoring of climate; irrigation water; soil; surface and ground water comprising: 3 Automated weather stations; 56 soil moisture indication probes; 7 Automated perennial stream monitoring stations; 9 Automated ephemeral stream monitoring stations; 16 Groundwater bores.

  - Health and nutrition of irrigated crops;

  - Analysis and data intepretation;

  - Data management;

  - Reporting and recommendations;

  - Founded Technical Review Committee;

  - Preparation of a Manual;

  - Monitoring equipoment calibration and maintenance.

  Management up to 5,700 data points per sensor each day by hundreds of sensors, plus sampling and management of large numbers of field samples requiring chain-of-custody control.

• Challenge:

  As part of an irrigated forest and fodder cropping development, Santos required a whole-of water cycle monitoring system for control of irrigation and compliance with conditions on the first, large-scale irrigated coal seam gas water reuse program in Australia.

• Solution:

  Verterra designed, installed an intensive network of automated monitoring probes, supported by a scheduled program of grab sampling for laboratory analysis, that provided a real-time knowledge of field conditions and supported adaptive management.

• Benefit to Client:

  The monitoring systems provided the client with real-time data to meet system control and compliance requirements.  Verterra's environmental and operational monitoring for coal seam gas water irrigation of forest and fodder crops ensured system parameters remained within licence conditions, and that water management and, in turn, gas production, could continue unabated.

• Market Sector: Oil and Gas
• Capabilities:
  • Monitoring Systems - Beneficial use of CSG water in Irrigation
• Location: Queensland
• Year: 2013 - 2014