Evapcalc Software for the Determination of Dam Evaporation and Seepage

Irrigation accounts for approximately two thirds of fresh water use across Australia, and evaporative loss from a million or so small dams constitutes a significant wastage of this valuable resource. The Pressure Sensitive Transducer / Automatic Weather Station (PST/AWS) technique can be used to quantify the rate of evaporative loss from farm dams, and distinguish this from seepage occurring through the dam walls and floor. EvapCalc version 3.0 software calculates dam evaporation based upon established Penman-Monteith theory, and also Morton's dry to wet transition algorithm for small ponds. Model outputs will be compared against direct measurements of moisture flux obtained using floating Eddy Covariance (ECV) equipment, and also DamCFD, a FLUENT based model developed at the University of Southern Queensland.