To achieve the goals of green drive in the country, the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME), represented by the Public Parks Department, has adopted most advanced irrigation system to cut water consumption drastically in irrigating plants, trees and landscapes.
“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 Director of Public Parks Department Eng. Muhammad Ali Al Khouri.
Speaking in a Qatar TV programme, he said that the experiments continue to make the network efficient and to add some soil conditioners to cut the water consumption further in irrigation of plants and landscaping.
“These experiments are being conducted by experts and agricultural engineers of irrigation programme to support the green drive of the country,” said Al Khouri.
“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.”
He said that the system receives all data from all sites, analyse them and take the necessary steps accordingly. “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.”
Despite the noticeable rise in temperatures, he said: “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 that large number of trees is being planted across the country to cut the carbon emission of vehicles, industries and other sources.
“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. He said that the highest number of trees which are being planted across the country under green drive is Sidr.
