CONSERVATION & ECOLOGY
Water is one of the most valuable resources for course managers to utilise on their golf course. Be it removal through drainage or addition by irrigation, your ability to manage and manipulate water efficiently is fundamental in helping you achieve your targets. Changeable seasonal weather patterns, often resulting in higher levels of precipitation falling in shorter periods of time, is making achieving adequate drainage of your land ever more challenging
T
his article, by Derek Fullerton BSc (Hons), aims to highlight potential ways in how to meet these challenges, and the resulting wider benefits that the responsible management of water can have on our vital fresh water ecosystems.
To begin, let’s get a clearer understanding of the resource we are dealing with. Firstly, take a minute to contemplate the following…. every bit of water that you come across in your daily life has been on earth since the planet was formed. Whether in liquid, gas or frozen form, it has been doing the rounds. There is no ‘new’ water, we cannot produce it. The fact that every life form on the planet is dependent on it in some way emphasises its importance. Ensuring water retains the ability to recycle itself via a process known as the global water cycle (Fig. 1.) is essential in maintaining its availability.
As a molecule, water has some unique attributes. No doubt you will be aware from its commonly recognised chemical name H2
O that water is made up of two positively charged hydrogen (H) atoms and a single negatively charged oxygen (O) atom (Fig. 2). This structure enables water molecules to be greatly attracted to each other, with the –O bonding tightly with the +H, referred to as cohesion. A very similar relationship that you may have come across exists in soils between negatively charged clay particles and positively charged nutrient ions, this being the backbone of a
growing medium’s cation exchange capacity (CEC). Water is also a superb solvent, with the ability to dissolve a vast number of substances, whilst also being one of the few molecules which is lighter in density when it is frozen compared to its liquid form. Just as well if you consider icebergs in relation to global water levels!
The consequences of wetter winters and extreme rainfall patterns will be recognisable to many course managers. Outdated drainage systems unable to cope with rising water tables and increased flow rates, this leading to prolonged periods of saturation, playing surface decline and inevitable course closures. So, if water is coming down quicker and in greater amounts than your course can absorb, how can you combat this? Instead of thinking of ways to remove water as quickly as possible off the course, perhaps you need to recognise the value of controlling it on the course prior to exit.
The use of constructed wetlands in the treatment and recycling of storm water is
Derek Fullerton
gaining popularity in many sectors. Their ability to ‘catch’ water runoff during extreme weather has been recognised as a way of controlling and reducing flow rates prior to discharge in to land drains. Also, aquatic fauna native to wetlands, referred to as macrophytes, have been shown to reduce concentrations of a number of pollutants including nutrients.
Some golf courses have begun to recognise the potential value of utilising constructed wetlands, with one being Dunnikier golf club in Fife, Scotland. Prior to course manager Paul Murphy taking over the parkland course, the land was regularly waterlogged after heavy periods of rainfall. The old pipe drainage system could no longer cope and installing a new system
With a greater volume of water comes a greater ‘pull’, think along the lines of a magnet. The larger the magnet the greater the magnetic pull, water behaves similarly
Fig. 1 PC August/September 2018 121
“
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156
