Harvesting of rainwater for agriculture in Brunei Darussalam: Water evaporation

• Main Authors: Marsidi, Mu’az, Ali, Mohammad Yeakub, Shams, Shahriar, Hamid, Azlina Diyanah, Singh, Ramesh, Ya’akub, Seri Rahayu
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cloth; Cost benefit analysis; Evaporation rate; Farms; Harvesting; High temperature; Rain water; Rainy season; Reservoirs
• ISSN: 0094-243X; 1551-7616
• DOI: 10.1063/5.0110364

On-farm agricultural water reservoirs in Brunei are prone to evaporation due to the hot tropical climate with higher temperatures combined with the increasingly unpredictable climate change. Reservation of water during the rainy season was practised to supply water in the hot season. However, reserved water also gets a significant loss due to wind speeds, humidity gradient, and high temperatures. In this project, evaporation loss in the water reservoir has been investigated. This project has studied the water catchment at the Institute of Brunei Technological Education (IBTE) Agro-Technology Campus and analyse the effectiveness of reducing the evaporation rate between water permeable shade cloth, shade balls, and banana leaves. Cost-benefits analysis has also been done for these methods. This project utilised pools to test the hypothesis that covering a water reservoir surface will reduce the evaporation rate. Shade cloth was found to be the most effective evaporation control which reduced the evaporation rate by an average of 64%, followed by a floating ball by 41%. Whereas the banana leaf cover provided an insignificant evaporation reduction by 3%.