| Abstract | The National Program for Sustainable Irrigation was a unique collaboration as it involved governments, irrigators, water providers and researchers from across Australia. It covered every aspect of irrigation from dam management and water delivery, through on-farm management, to sustainable landscape environmental measures. The program has contributed to; • major increases in the efficiency and productivity of irrigation water, • significant reductions in salinity to the Murray Darling Rivers, • greater knowledge and technical capacity of irrigators and irrigation professionals. NPSI partners invested $5.2 million between 2006 - 2012, which led to an additional $6.5 million of co-investments in projects. Benefit cost ratios from investments in irrigation research consistently have been high, between 7 and 14 to one. Equally important have been environmental benefits and human capacity building. In total, 42% of funds were invested in projects that have increased knowledge, 37% that increased efficiency and 21% of invested funds have delivered a demonstrable industry economic impact. Tangible benefits to irrigators have resulted due to improved knowledge of water use efficiency benchmarks and tools, the ability to quantify water losses and better management strategies being put into practice. NPSI has been active in building improved skills, knowledge and decision making of end users via workshops, training events and publications. NPSI played a collaborative role in feeding information from research through to extension networks and sales/technical representatives, then on to the farm. The flagship publication “Irrigation Essentials” provides a snapshot of the latest NPSI research and development that is improving technology, enabling the sharing of knowledge and practice change across all agricultural commodities and horticultural industries. It provides case studies that demonstrate how research and good ideas may be adopted and provides sources of additional information on key topics. Sixty individual case studies have been published. The economic pay off from NPSI II was estimated to deliver at least $13.7m (present value terms) to the Australian economy. Against a total NPSI II investment of $9.1m (present value terms) this represents a positive pay off on funds invested. The net present value was estimated at $4.6m which represents a return of $1.50 on every dollar invested in NPSI II. If benefits are only compared against the cost of projects that have delivered an economic benefit (21% of total costs) the return would be $7.20 for every dollar invested across those projects. The program commissioned an external evaluation of its operations in 2011 |
