International Water & Irrigation

6 Fresno State University among a group of other research bodies given $5 million to advance irrigation research A group of universities, including Fresno State, and agriculture industry companies were awarded $5 million to advance irrigation technology research. A spokesman for Fresno State Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology recently announced that the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research sponsored the grant that was given to the companies and universities so they can launch an Irrigation Innovation Consortium to develop water and energy-efficient technologies. Fresno State and the other recipients will match the grant to raise it to $10 million. From there, researchers from the public sector and the agriculture industry will co-develop, test, prototype and improve innovations, equipment, technology and decisions and information systems designed to equip farms of the future with “cutting-edge technologies and strategies. Federal agencies like the Agriculture Research Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture will work with the groups in the consortium to address critical water challenges facing the industry, the spokesperson added. Following the research, the consortium is expected to share the results with the public. The consortium includes Fresno- based Jain Irrigation, Modestro- based Rubicon Water, the Irrigation Association, Lindsay Corporation and Northern Water. Colorado State University, Kansas State University, University of Nebraska and Texas A&M University are the other universities working with Fresno State. Australian forest ecosystem collapse threatens Melbourne’s water supply Melbourne’s water supply is at risk because decades of logging and forest loss from large bushfires has triggered the imminent collapse of the mountain ash forests in Victoria’s central highlands, ecologists have warned. New research carried out by the Australian National University has found the ecosystem has already begun to undergo a “hidden collapse”, meaning it may appear superficially intact, but the lag time in recovering old-growth forests - the linchpin in preserving mountain ash ecosystems - “means that collapse is almost inevitable”. Most of Melbourne’s water catchments are in mountain ash forests. According to a spokesperson from the University, those forests have either been damaged or are still growing, meaning that they are currently draw 12 megalitres more water per hectare annually than forests that have been longer established. In the Upper Thomson catchment, which feeds Melbourne’s largest water supply dam, the Thomson reservoir, close to two thirds of the trees have been logged. Canadian companies finds innovation in wastewater treatment British Columbia (B.C.) is quietly becoming an incubator for wastewater treatment technology Leading the way is Vancouver- based Axine Water Technologies Inc., whose first client, a San Jose, California electronics plant found that their water was so contaminated with solvents that it couldn’t be treated onsite. The only solution was to employ hundreds of tanker trucks each year to transfer the “ Toxic Water” to a remote facility where, it goes through an incineration process. They are not alone. According to a spokesperson for Axine, industrial concerns in North American spend up to $10 billion a year treating and disposing of polluted water. With an eye on that market, Axine have developed a treatment system that uses an electrochemical reaction to pull chemicals out of water by breaking them up into elemental form: carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, et cetera. At the end of the process, all that remains is clean water and trace amounts of inert gases. The Cleantech Group, a U.S.-based advocate for the clean technology industry, says privately owned Axine gathered $20 million, mostly through venture fundraising, to get its technology to a commercial scale. The company installed its novel water treatment system at the California factory last June, eliminating the cost and risk of trucking and incinerating the water. Such is the interest in this new process, Axine expects to install