Opening Golf to the World
Palmares Ocean Living and Golf
Palmares Ocean Living and Golf Course on the Algarve coast in Portugal historically has utilised water from a local reservoir fed by mountain rainfall.
Palmares Ocean Living and Golf Course on the Algarve coast in Portugal historically has utilised water from a local reservoir fed by mountain rainfall. Water demand for the whole golf course (landscape and 27 holes) historically was approximately 500,000-570,000 m3 a year. However, due to low rainfall in recent years, reservoir levels have been at 30% of what they should be. This resulted in an instruction to the golf course from the Association that manages the dam to reduce their water supply from 500,000 to 300,000 m3. In addition, two existing boreholes onsite has become heavily saline, and are no longer suitable for use.
This forced the club to write their first Water Contingency Plan in 2020. The three key points in the plan are:
- Audit and monitor irrigation system to improve efficiency
- Harvest rainwater onsite utilising existing lake system
- Upgrade irrigation system to more efficient Lynx. Key focus on reducing water demand from fairways and roughs
A key project has been to source additional water from onsite lakes. A natural lake is present onsite which is replenished by groundwater. Due to its close proximity to the coast this water has potential to be saline, although water is filtered through natural sand beds as it replenishes the lake, and so is only slightly saline. Water is pumped from this lake into a small wet well, from which it is pumped to the main water storage onsite. Detailed laboratory analysis of this new water source has shown that this water can be mixed with reservoir water at a ratio of 1:5 with no adverse effects on salinity. The club have also installed a very detailed monitored system which allows water levels in the wet well, lakes and salinity of water supply to be constantly monitored. This allows the water mixture to be adapted as necessary, and water supply constantly monitored.
Drainage water from the West of the course (36 ha) is also directed into this new wet well and pumped into the main lake. Previously this was just allowed to drain directly into the sea. It is estimated that when combined, these two sources provide approximately 90,000 m3 a year. With an initial outlay of €18k on pumps/sensors, and a water price of 0.2 € m-3, the system has a return on investment of 1.05 years, essentially already repaying itself. Monitoring water levels in the wet well also allows the green keeping team to assess when irrigation on this part of the course is excessive and starting to drain through the profile.
In addition to the reusage of all the water that we can collect in Palmares, several analysis are being tested as possible ad-on to the efficiency of the system, as an example, NDVI and NDWI measurements on fairways.
The course is also planning to update their irrigation system to Lynx software, allow significant savings in water (10 %) and electricity (20 %) due to increased efficiency. Despite the larger outlay, this upgrade will have a return on investment of just 3.5 years.
