In South Australia , the Angas River and the Bremer River collect runoff from the hills east of Adelaide and transport it to Lake Alexandrina near the mouth of the River Murray.

The Angas Bremer district is located near Strathalbyn, beside Lake Alexandrina approximately, 30km from the Murray Mouth and 60km south east of Adelaide. The 7,100 hectares (ha) of irrigated area includes 5,400 ha of wine-grapes, 470 ha of lucerne and 430 ha of potatoes.

Since 1980 the 160 irrigators on the Angas Bremer floodplain have worked closely with their elected Angas Bremer Water Management Committee and specialists from government agencies to lead Australia in developing and implementing innovative water management policies.

Their successes include:

.  Since 1880 innovative winter flooding has been developed so that winegrapes start the growing season with a rootzone full of water

.  To stop over-exploitation of their groundwater resource, water allocations were reduced by 80%

.  To learn more about water management, every irrigator participates in Irrigation Annual Reporting

.  All irrigators comply with their own Irrigators Code of Practice

.  All irrigators use the CSIRO FullStop - wetting front detector

.  Each irrigator plants and maintains 2 ha of vegetation for each 100 Megalitres (ML) of water allocated

.  Each irrigator has installed a monitoring well and is using it to measure and to report the height and the salinity of the water-table

Further reading:

More Water Management Innovations (2008) (1Mb) (503Kb)

Angas Bremer Irrigators lead the nation (2004) (50Kb) (131Kb)

Learning together at Angas Bremer (2004) (147Kb) (143Kb)

A Partnership Approach to Environmental Stewardship in Langhorne Creek, SA, (2002) (71Kb) (517Kb)

Visitors Since 1 July 2004:

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