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With Alberta’s supply of available
irrigation water being stretched to an ever-increasing
limit, the irrigation industry has become much more
proactive in recognizing the need for better water
management through improved control and measurement.
The “Water Measurement Demonstration and
Testing Facility” is an initiative of the Basin Water
Management
Branch of Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development (ARD),
to support the industry’s move to adopting enhanced water
control and measurement systems.
This project has been made possible
through the partnership contributions by many Alberta
companies and agencies. The facility now offers the
opportunity to:
-
 Support applied research into new
flow measurement and control techniques that can be
applicable to southern Alberta conditions
- Provide controlled testing of new
measurement technologies to evaluate proposed equipment,
systems or solutions
- Provide a facility for the
demonstration of various flow measurement and control
techniques, systems and equipment
- Provide a “benchmark” facility where
the irrigation industry can have their own flow
measurement equipment tested for accuracy and calibrated
against more high-cost high accuracy flow measurement
components
- Support the testing and demonstration
of water quality monitoring and sampling equipment
The site consists of a recirculating water
conveyance system. Both the pipeline and open channel
infrastructure are accessible for evaluating flow
measurement technologies.
Along the pipeline, there are several
measurement and control points as well as access vaults to
the buried pipeline. This allows for both the temporary and
permanent installation of various pipeline flow measurement
devices that can be tested, demonstrated or calibrated.
The open channel section of the project
contains six precast concrete panel control structures, four
of which allow for the temporary “drop-in / lift-out”
installation of a wide variety of flow control and
measurement components, be they various types of weirs,
flumes or the like. The other two structures have been
fitted with automated control gates, which control water
levels for diversions into simulated farm delivery turnouts
or lateral channels.
View the demo canal brochure |
