Water R&D

Water R&D goals

Our Research and Development facilitates practice change that leads to:

Increased water productivity
Increased profitability of farming systems
Improved agricultural water management through evidence based policy advice
Decreased production risk

Water R&D projects

Benchmarking Cotton Water Productivity

Water R&D capabilities

We have Research and Development staff based at eight locations across NSW’s major agricultural regions.

We deliver Research and Development in complex field environments and apply specialist capabilities in:

Measuring and evaluating the components of the water balance in the plant root zone
Quantifying water productivity relative to biological potential and monitoring progress to increase productivity
Integrating hydrology, soil science, agronomy and farming systems at the paddock, farm, and sub catchment scale

Water Research and Development themes

Water productivity

We plan and implement R&D that farmers can adopt to underpin the profitable and productive use of agricultural water in NSW. We do this by:

Improving water productivity in rain-fed and irrigated agricultural systems
Mitigating the risks associated with variable water availability
Enabling the use of available water resources for sustainable profitability
Understanding what drives farmers to adopt new technologies, and planning and implementing our research to ensure we meet those drivers

Sustainable use of water

We improve water management practices to increase the sustainability and productivity of agriculture in NSW and enhance the capacity of agriculture to respond to risks and change. We do this by:

Participating as an essential partner in the development of water policy that has the potential to affect NSW agricultural users
Delivering R&D that enables the sustainable use of water in agriculture, increases the social license to operate for agriculture in NSW, and influences water policy outcomes.