The innovative aspects for the case study as a whole could be synthesized as follows:
-
Involvement of the Stakeholders for the selection and definition of the case study
-
Agreement among stakeholders with different interests
-
Integrated use of models applied to the same case study but facing different problems.
-
Identification of operation plans and regimes for fulfilling minimum flow requirements
Innovative aspects for the irrigation activity by Alterra could be:
-
The use of Remote sensing for irrigation scheduling: The spatial variation of the actual evapotranspiration of an area will be calculated from satellite images (and hydrological modelling), which will be used for formulating optimal irrigation scenarios.
-
The use of the depleted fraction to manage the groundwater table in the irrigated perimeter to assess sustainability (Criwar model).
Innovative aspects included into the activity regarding the improvement of agricultural practices to decrease pollutant losses is the use of hydrologic simulation models to locate “hot spots” in a catchment of a semi-arid and intermittent river: the peculiarities of such flow regime constitute a challenge in the modelling of water and nutrients balance at catchment scale.