LANDSCAPING SERVICES
WATER SUPPLIES FOR IRRIGATION
For all groundsmen and greenkeepers climate change brings about real issues in maintaining good playing surfaces as we experience periods of drought and exceptionally high temperatures . In West Sussex during summer 2019 , 36 C was experienced at some golf clubs . The cool season type grasses used in the UK were never developed to withstand these temperatures . not in general reduced the annual rainfall , it just tends to arrive in heavy downpours and thus the dry periods are longer . Much has been said about the water shortage in the UK but quantity is not the issue ; it more about storage and distribution . Water purchased for the Water Company is expensive and subject to restriction just at the time you may need it . So what can you do about it ?
the abstraction to be in the winter but that is not a problem if your reservoir is big enough .
Water harvesting can be useful for sports grounds that have large stands with roofs and lots of hard surfaces . Storage is a bigger issue . You can build a completely invisible underground storage system beneath the playing surfaces without the use of concrete .
So what can you do about it ? Well obviously you need to irrigate to get sufficient water to the grass roots but some of you may not be aware of the advantage of syringing . If you are lucky enough to have an automatic irrigation system then you should find this facility available as one of the programmes . For those not familiar with this practice it involves running the sprinkler system for a short period 2 or 3 minutes – just enough to damp down the grass . The sun then burns off the moisture and in so doing the latent heat factor cools down the grass plant relieving some of the stress .
All of these irrigation applications require the precious resource WATER . Now climate change has
Providing you have sufficient space the construction of an earth bank reservoir is the best line of action . If you can find an area 100m x 80m then you could store 12,000,000litres . Even in a space 75 x 55m you could store 5,900,000litres .
So now you have the storage how do you fill it ? First thing to know is that no licence is needed to abstract 20,000 litres a day from a natural source providing the abstraction does not have a significant impact on the stream flow or the underground aquifer . This would put 7,300,000 litres into your reservoir per year . Providing the geological strata is suitable you might get a licence to abstract at a higher rate from a suitable borehole . Often the Environment Agency would require
Nearly all these abstraction and storage situations will require some sort of planning consent as well as careful engineering . You need to engage consulting engineers from whom you should expect to cover all aspects of the project from initial surveys , geological investigation , consultations with the Environment Agency and other agencies for the protection of nature . They should be your consultants , entirely independent of contractors and manufacturers so as to ensure you get the best system at the best possible price . www . 2ic . co . uk
100 www . landud . co . uk Follow us @ ludmagazine