FILL IN THE DAMS?

摘要

Small dams in inland Australia are key farm infrastructure and are essential for the economic survival of rural business during sustained drought. However, harsh arid climatic conditions result in annual evaporation losses greater than annual water usage. The purpose of this study is to investigate the feasibility of replacing small farm dams with groundwater dams, constructed by filling the farm dams with gravel or sand. Water is then stored in the soil pore space, where evaporation decreases as a function of water depth below the surface of the soil, until at a depth of 0.9m, evaporation is negligible. Although storage volume is reduced, this method may be an efficient alternative to the current unavoidable evaporation losses from open surface waters.rnThe study outlined below concludes that the application of groundwater dams would be beneficial in arid areas, particularly for larger farm dams.