University of Adelaide School of Earth and Environmental Science Summer Vacation Research Studentship Topic: Verification and testing

of a water, salinity and plant simulation model Duration: 6 weeks, flexible working hours Studentship:$300 per week Supervisor: Prof Wayne Meyer, Prof Natural Resource Science Location: Waite Campus, Urrbrae Description of the project: A series of simulation models has been developed that represents the soil, water, groundwater and crop processes that exist in an irrigated landscape. One of these models, SWAGMAN Destiny has been developed and partially documented. The project will examine the construct, code and presentation of the software package with the aim of verifying the integrity of the code, checking the documentation and assessing the effectiveness of the process representations. SWAGMAN Destiny is a point scale, daily time step crop system model which can be used to determine net groundwater recharge and changes in watertable and root zone salinity and crop productivity. It can be run for a range of crops and pastures at a point in the landscape, as they are affected by management (eg sowing date, irrigation management), soil properties, groundwater conditions and weather. The model can operate in three analysis modes and present outputs in several graphical and text forms. Project opportunity: The project will provide the student with an opportunity to learn about methods used to simulate the interactive and dynamic physical and biological processes of an irrigated landscape. Application of the model is highly topical and this project will provide an insight into career opportunities in the water and natural resource management areas. Who should be interested? The project will be of interest to a student at the end of second or third year that is keen to explore application of software engineering and software documentation in the biological and natural resources domain. Alternatively, if you are an environmental engineering or agricultural science student and you want some insight into computer based applications this would help you. Contact: Prof Wayne Meyer Tel: 8303 8110 Mobile: 0407 953 544 Email: wayne.meyer@adelaide.edu.au