WATSAVE Awards... Water Distribution Management at the Vaalharts Irrigation Scheme of South Africa Vaalharts is the largest irrigation scheme in South Africa having over 29000 ha. Computerisation of the already well-  developed manual water administration system using digitised and electronically imported flow data saved 17.5  million m3 in a single year. This is sufficient to irrigate 74 additional farms. Mr. Kobus Harbron’s work on Water  distribution management at Vaalharts Water resulted in his receiving the ICID WatSave Innovative Water  Management Award 2010. A strong presentation impressed the Panel of judges and made it credible that this saving  represents 5 percent of the losses. Following is a summary of the presentation:  Background  The Vaalharts irrigation scheme commissioned in 1930 is situated at the Northern Cape  provinces in South Africa. It serves 29,181 ha through around, 1900 abstraction points  through pressure regulating sluices. The Vaalharts Water User Association (Vaalharts Water)  took over the scheme from the Government in 2003. The scheme consists of a main canal  (38.3 m3/s) and a network of canals covering a distance of more than 100 km.  The objectives of the water distribution management office at Vaalharts Water is to supply the  correct amount of water to the right place at the right time with the minimum water loss within  the limitations of the system, and to inspect and maintain the canal network to prevent  excessive water losses due to bad maintenance. At Vaalharts Water this can be a very daunting task, given the size  of the scheme and the number of farmers that require water on a weekly basis. To assist them in this task and to  improve on their service delivery to the irrigation farming community, they have decided to replace their manual  water distribution system with a computerized system called the Water Administration System (WAS). Manual system  The previous manual water distribution system had certain limitations that cause excessive water losses that are  difficult to prevent. As many people are involved, the calculation errors commonly occur. Losses are unknown factors  which are estimated most of the time. Personnel changes have a negative effect on water distribution management  due to loss of information and experience.  Computerized system  The computerised system in the form of the Water Administration System (WAS) addressed the above mentioned  problems of the manual water distribution system and improved the operations at Vaalharts Water. In the  computerized system water orders are captured directly into the computer by water control officers, calculation errors  are eliminated, water balances are updated on a daily basis, volumes are now quantified on a weekly basis, and not  monthly as it were done in the past; water use efficiency reports are generated automatically, water shortages on  canals due to human error are limited, canal leakages and breakages can easily be monitored due to fixed water  losses, water control officers have more time for inspections, minor repairs and time for attending clients.  Water savings  With the implementation of the WAS program Vaalharts Water managed to decrease the losses from 32 percent to  26.7 percent. A 5 percent saving, which is equivalent to 17.5 million m3, was therefore realized in the first year after  implementing the WAS program. This saving is the equivalent of: an additional 1920 ha that could have been  irrigated given the fact that the full water quota at Vaalharts Water is 9,140 m3/ha. Mr. Kobus Harbron’s can be  contacted at <kobus@vhwater.co.za>. Acknowledgement The above article has been taken from the ICID News 2010/4.