The economics of measuring and improving Water Use Efficiency

Understanding and monitoring WUE supports improved crop water budgeting, which in turn reduces production risk. Insights can identify areas where farm efficiencies are underperforming industry benchmarks, highlighting potential areas for investment in WUE improvements. In addition, by incorporating the above water budgeting and gross margin process into a capital budgeting process, the benefits of improved WUE can be compared to the cost of improving WUE. For a Northern NSW or Southern QLD furrow irrigation system, an improvement from the average to the top 25% irrigation efficiency could lead to a 16% reduction in water use per ha, allowing 19% more cotton to be grown with the same water.