1.
The Future of Irrigation District Management
Big data, analytics and business intelligence at Murrumbidgee Irrigation
Peter Brew, Adasa
Chris Smith, Murrumbidgee Irrigation
A. Prof John Hornbuckle, Deakin University

2.
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Megatrends for Rural Water Businesses
Whole-of-life costs
A megatrend is a deep-set
trajectory of change that
… happens over a 5-
20 year time period.
Megatrends develop
gradually but eventually
reshape the business
environment.
Tomorrow’s Digitally Enabled
Workforce, CSIRO, 2016.
Water availability
Customer expectations
Digitisation and technology

3.
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1 EB = 10006bytes = 1018bytes = 1000000000000000000B = 1000 petabytes =
1million terabytes = 1billion gigabytes.
Source: The Digital Universe of Opportunities: Rich Data and the Increasing Value of the Internet of Things,
IDC 2014
Big Data: the “Digital Universe” is Growing
at 40% a Year

4.
Source: Digital Agriculture: Improving Profitability, Accenture report, 2015.
Source: Using predictive weather analytics to
feed future generations, IBM Research.
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Data is Giving Rise to what is Now Being Called
Precision Agriculture
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5.
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From little data big data grow,
Australian Farm Institute, 2015.
Setup at the 2012 G-8
Summit.
Soil, Big Data and the Future of
Agriculture, 2015.
Open API standards for farmers
cloud data.
Government, Inter-Government, Research

6.
NFF is Harnessing Data into a Digital
Agriculture Service
 “The Digital Agriculture Service in
partnership with Accenture will turn vast
quantities of data into high
performance farm management –
generating higher yields while lowering
input costs.”
 “For the first time, farmers now have the
opportunity to harness major innovation
trends to supercharge their productivity
and efficiency.
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7.
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A Digital View of Tasmania is Being Created
 Sense-T is linking existing sensor
networks that monitor environmental
conditions across Tasmania, such as
those owned by government
departments, energy and water
utilities and businesses.
 Building an economy-wide sensor
network and data resource, creating
a digital view of Tasmania and
giving industry, governments and
communities the tools to solve
practical problems and make better
decisions.
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8.
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Water Business Initiatives Here and Overseas
Victorian Water Association in partnership with all 17 Victorian water
corporations has developed an Information, Analytics and Real-time
System Optimisation Program.
Water NSW is managing the Murrumbidgee River better using models in
a project called CARM.
The US Department of Agriculture with the Flint River Partnership in
Georgia has developed new weather analytics capabilities based on big
data tools and information from sensors to generate highly localised
weather forecasts for farmers.
The Irrigation District of Aragon and Catalunya in Spain is using Landsat
images to predict demand.

9.
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Rural Water Businesses Strategies are
Starting to Respond
• “Greater use of … technology to support customer service functions.”
• “[we will] operate as a high-performing organisation …”
• “Underpinning our strategy is our focus on creating a high
performance culture and leveraging smarter and innovative
technology.”
• “We [will] … apply technology as an enabler of business efficiency.”
• “Build the capability and culture of our people into a more highly
skilled, professional, customer focused and efficient organisation.”
• “Ensure decision making is based on facts and data, not emotion.”
• … improve water delivery efficiency, through use of system modelling
tools and remote monitoring and control of critical infrastructure …
• “Identify opportunities to innovate how we work so we are more
effective and efficient.”

10.
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Internet of Things (IoT)

11.
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A Breathtaking Pace of Growth
Of 187 billion connected things in
2013, the number of sensors was
50 billion.
Data just from the sensors accounted for 2%
of the digital universe in 2013 and will rise to
10% by 2020.
Source: The Digital Universe of Opportunities: Rich Data and the Increasing Value of the Internet of
Things, IDC 2014

12.
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How Much Data Do You Collect?
500 X
1 minute
4kb
8 months
1.3Gb
500 gates
660Gb

13.
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How Much Data Do You Collect?
Storage levels
Meter readings
Water quality
Aquifers
Catchment flows
Rainfall & ET0
Flood indicators
Orders
Trades

14.
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Rural Water Businesses Spend a lot of Money
Collecting Data but almost Nothing on Analysing it
IDC estimates that in 2013 less than 5% of data in the
digital universe was actually analysed.
Source:IDC2014
Source: The value of Big Data: How analytics differentiates winners, Bain & Company, 2014.
Bain & Company found that in a survey only 4% of
companies said they had the right people, tools, data
and intent to draw meaningful insights from data and
to act on them.

15.
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Data Growth is a Business Opportunity
Michael Dell (2015): “If you look at companies today,
most of them are not very good at using the data they
have to make better decisions in real time.”
“I think this is where the next trillion dollars comes from
for our customers and for our industry.”
Bill Gates said in his book, Business @ The
Speed of Thought, “The most meaningful way to
differentiate your company is to do an
outstanding job with information.”
“How you gather, manage, and use information
will determine whether you will win or lose.”

16.
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Data Can Address the Megatrends Facing
Rural Water Businesses
 “The ability to analyse data from IoT devices will reveal many opportunities to
improve the overall efficiency of water management and to improve the
allocation of constrained water resources.”
 “Aging infrastructure, deferred maintenance and delayed capital projects
threaten the overall integrity of water systems and increase the need for
analytics to allocate scarce capital.“
Source: Market Trends: Can IoT and Smart Water Management Technologies Solve the Emerging
Water Crisis, Gartner, 2014.

17.
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An Opportunity to Increase Productivity and
Profitability
Harvard Business Review reported in 2012 that:
“companies in the top third of their industry in the use of
data-driven decision making were, on average, 5% more
productive and 6% more profitable than their competitors.”
Cisco says that if “crude” data can be extracted,
refined and piped to where it can impact decisions
in real-time, it’s value with soar.

18.
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How is Murrumbidgee is Benefiting from Data,
Analytics and Business Intelligence
Better,
Smarter
Decisions
Set targets for
business drivers
and track them in
real time and
against rich
historical data.
Make data driven
decisions on
operations and
investments.
Predictive
Maintenance
Reduce
maintenance costs
by targeting poorly
performing
channels for
remediation.
Monitor outlet
battery condition to
avoid customer
outages.
Forecast
Demand
Manage water
more efficiently &
improve customer
service by using all
data available.
Global
Visibility
Get a single view of
operations in real
time, including data
from different
vendors, hidden in
spread sheets or
locked up in
archives.
Scenario
Analysis
Assess water
trading requests.
Examine the
impact of scheme
modification
including assets.
Identify historical
patterns such as
last flood or dry
year.
Increased
Water
Identify excess
capacity in
channels.
Exploit excess river
flows or rainfall.
Optimise storage
capacity.

19.
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Global Visibility
A single integrated view of operations in real time, including data from
different vendors, data hidden in spread sheets or locked up in archives.

20.
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Before: Spread Sheet Daily Snapshot
Data aggregated manually (costly), once a day (not up to date), but
difficult to read and interpret (no history and problems may be missed).

21.
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Better, Smarter Decisions
Set targets for KPIs that drive your business drivers and track them in
real time.

22.
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Better, Smarter Decisions
Set targets for KPIs that drive your business drivers and track them in
real time.

23.
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Better, Smarter Decisions
Make data driven decisions on operations and investments.
Channel flow
volume entering
each section (spur)
Escape losses
Monthly losses
and orders per
division
Water balances

24.
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Forecast Demand
Manage water more efficiently by integrating all data available into
models that predict demand.
Landsat images
BoM ET0 forecast
IrriSAT
Water orders (IPM)
BoM rainfall actual
and forecast
Soil map
7 day demand curve

25.
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Scenario Analysis
Identify historical patterns or impacts of historical conditions similar to
current flood or dry year or averages.

26.
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Examine the impact of scheme modification including assets.
1. Change asset (eg modify a
regulator size or operating level,
increase the size of an outlet, add
balancing storage)
2. Run
simulator
3. Assess
behaviour
4. Share output
with another
user.
Scenario Analysis

27.
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Increased Water for Farmers
Identify excess capacity or delivery constraints in channels.

28.
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Optimised Water Storage
Optimise storage capacity with real time information and models of
rainfall runoff and evaporation.

29.
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Personalised Customer Service
Improve customer service with personalised forecasts.

30.
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Predictive Maintenance
Reduce maintenance costs & avoid delivery problems by tracking
channel performance and targeting remediation.
70%
75%
80%
85%
90%
95%
100%
2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Bombora Channel Efficiency
Reliability
Stability
Ontime
All 2015 values are
within acceptable ranges
But the trend of Delivery
Reliability and Channel
Stability indicate a
problem is building

31.
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The Future of Irrigation District Management
One of the four megatrends reshaping rural water businesses is
increasing digitisation and the growth of data.
“I was able to perform
tasks in 4 seconds that
we used to take up to 3
months.”
Noel Heath
Operations Manager
Murrumbidgee Irrigation
Better, Smarter
Decisions
Forecast
Demand
.
Global
Visibility
Scenario
Analysis
Increased
Water
Murrumbidgee Irrigation today is using data to:
Predictive
Maintenance
Personalised
Customer
Service
Advanced analytics are making possible:
Better capture, storage and analysis of data is an opportunity
to be more efficient, make better decisions, reduce costs and
respond to increasing customer demands.

32.
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