Learnings on the small water cycle

A huge thanks to Phil Mulvey, Chief Executive Officer from Ryzo Australia who at our most recent webinar, shared his incredible knowledge about the small water cycle and how understanding it can improve efficiency of water management on farms. “Managing water use efficiency on farms by managing the small water cycle” was another well-attended webinar with lots of audience questions and engagement.

Here are some of the key takeaways from Phil’s fascinating presentation:

• There exists a large AND small water cycle. The difference being, the small water cycle focuses on the water cycle processes (evapotranspiration, runoff, infiltration, precipitation etc) at a smaller scale than the large water cycle.
• To optimize water efficiency, the small water cycle must be maximised. This involves employing strategies to use water more efficiently and create more rainfall.
• To use water more efficiently we must: Promote infiltration over runoff so water can be held at one source (this can be done by promoting roughage); increase vegetation coverage to increase evapotranspiration; use plants to optimize deep microporosity; create the right soil biome ratio as well as recharge alluvium and flatten stream baseflow and flood peaks.

This is just a glimpse of the advantages that understanding the small water cycle can offer to farmers in terms of efficient water management. To learn more, watch the complete HydroTerra webinar here.