Water Auditing In Arkansas

GCSA Arkansas members conduct a green water
audit at Fayetteville CC

One of the really cool parts of my job as South Central field staff is all the great education presentations that I see at chapter events. In October, at the GCSA of Arkansas annual meeting, attendees were treated to an informative talk and demonstration of basic water auditing techniques and methods. Jason Cook, CID (Certified Irrigation Designer), CLIA (Certified Landscape Irrigation Auditor), provided members with practical information that they were able to take back to their courses and use immediately. 


Water auditing provides many benefits not limited to the opportunity to save water and associated pumping power. For a course committed to responsible environmental management and water conservation, auditing is an essential Best Management Practice. Water auditing is the process of measuring irrigation system performance to determine water use efficiency.
From these calculations, management decisions and system modifications can be considered to better utilize the system and apply water as precisely as possible. Issues with factors such as station run time, cycle scheduling, nozzle selection, head spacing and many others can be identified and addressed with routine water audits. Members in attendance were very enthusiastic about the demonstration and are now prepared to initiate a water audit at their home courses.

The highlight of the presentation was an on-course audit demonstration on the 9th green at Fayetteville Country Club. Members measured a grid and placed catch can devices on 10-foot centers across the entire surface of the green. All four sprinkler heads that irrigate the green were operated for 10 minutes. The water collected during the run time was then precisely measured and analyzed to determine the distribution uniformity for the system. 

For more information about water auditing, I suggest a search of “water audit” on the gcsaa.org website. Or visit the Course section, and select "Water conservation" under the Environment heading. I found many very good articles from the GCM archives and several irrigation related webcasts. There are also several irrigation management seminars planned for the 2014 GCSAA Education Conference in Orlando. Registration for these seminars and the conference opens November 5^th!

Greenside irrigation running during the irrigation audit of #9 green. In the interest of time for this demonstration, all four heads were run at the same time. Typically, heads would run independently.