RGA Landcare

Digitising the Farm Water Management Plan Template

Creating an MS Excel version of the Farm Water Management Plan template

Efficiency - LEP_23-030_LLC004

The issue

RGA Landcare is a delivery partner of the Southern NSW Innovation Hub’s Farm Water Management Planning project. A key outcome of the project is for landholders to complete a Farm Water Management Plan for their properties in effort to plan stock and domestic water infrastructure to both mitigate against the impacts of drought conditions, and ensure quality water is available in the quantity and flow rate required to meet demand at peak stocking rates.

A printable PDF plan template was provided to the project delivery partners for landholders to fill in by hand (or editable PDF) which requires them to complete a significant number of calculations manually. Whilst this method is preferred by some farm business managers, it is onerous for those who frequently use digital tools like MS Excel to perform calculations and run different scenarios for comparison.

The solution

We developed an MS Excel version of the FWMP Template to provide farm business managers with options to suit their preferred method of planning. Key features of the calculator include:

  • Automatically calculates outputs based on inputs – no need for user to manually perform calculations.
  • Does not require the same data or calculation outputs to be entered multiple times.
  • Ability to select rainfall and evaporation data from a list of locations across the Murray region or enter your own data.
  • Ability to view related information and calculations in a single table (rather than across multiple tables on multiple pages)

The impact

They key advantage of the FWMP Excel calculator is that it is significantly faster to perform the calculations section of the plan template, making it easy to run and compare different scenarios e.g. to compare stock water demand at peak stocking rates versus drought stocking rates. Such comparative analysis is an integral part of making informed decisions that best meet the needs of the business.

In addition, the calculator also eliminates human error in performing the calculations, thereby reducing the risk of decisions being made based on false information.

Author: Felicity Liphuyzen

Key facts

  • The project manager provided delivery partners with a PDF version of a Farm Water Management Plan in which landholders calculate their stock and domestic water demand and supply, and consider infrastructure planning to mitigate against drought.
  • There is significant variation in computer literacy among farm business managers, with some preferring to do calculations manually, and others preferring to use programs such as MS Excel.
  • We digitised the FWMP template to an MS Excel calculator to engage the latter group of farm managers, and enable quick and easy comparison analysis of different scenarios.

Project Partners