The Agriculture Water Demand Model (AWDM) was originally developed in the Okanagan watershed, in response to rapid population growth, drought conditions from climate change, and the overall increased demand for water.
- The model helps us understand current and future agricultural water demands.
The AWDM calculates water use on a property-by-property basis, and sums each property to obtain a total water demand for the entire basin or each sub-basin.
Crop, irrigation system type, soil texture and climate data are used to calculate the water demand.
Figure 1 – Map of ALR in Regional District of Nanaimo
Climate data from 2003 was used to present information on one of the hottest and driest years on record and 1997 data was used to represent a wet year.
- 2003 was one of the hottest and driest years on record.
Lands within the Agriculture Land Reserve (ALR), depicted in green in Figure 1 were included in the project.