The MME advanced irrigation system conserves water in parks

By adopting the most advanced irrigation system to cut water consumption dramatically for irrigating plants, trees, and landscapes, the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME), represented by the Department of Public Parks, is achieving the nation’s green drive goals.

“The modern irrigation technique helped greatly in reducing consumption of water. We conducted many experiments using advanced water-efficient irrigation techniques for example in the parks water consumption decreased to one fourth compared to the traditional method,” said the Director of Public Parks Department Eng. Muhammad Ali Al Khouri. During a recent interview on Qatar TV, he explained that experiments are still ongoing to improve the efficiency of the irrigation system and to add some soil conditioners to further reduce water consumption.

“These experiments are being conducted by experts and agricultural engineers of irrigation programme to support the green drive of the country. The irrigation system consists of a central control unit located in the Public Parks Department. This unit creates irrigation programmes and sends them to all sites without the need to go to the site through a long-range radio communication system,” said Al Khouri.

“A text message is sent to the mobile of the responsible engineer to warn that there is a problem in one of the sites and daily reports are issued on water flow and pressure values. We are keen to use the rationalisation programme in the consumption of irrigation water in parks using flow sensors, through which more than 60% of the sites have been rationalised,” he said

He said that the system collects data from all places, analyses it, and then takes the appropriate actions. To reduce carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, industries, and other sources, a large number of trees are being planted around the country.  

“We targeted to plant a million trees under ‘Plant Million Tree’ initiative of MME. The drive focused on planting local trees such as Sidr, Al Ghaf, Al Samur, Al Awsaj, as they are available in the country and grow with seasonal rain and consume less water,” said Al Khouri. Sidr, he added, has the largest number of trees being planted across the country as part of the green drive.