This project was initiated by Geoff Connellan (School of Land
and Environment, University of Melbourne) who obtained funding
from the Smart Water Fund in 2005. The garden water estimation
tool was developed with the assistance of numerous horticultural
and water management colleagues and specialists including Dr
Peter May and Ms Liz Denman. Information used in the model was
sourced from mulch and irrigation trials conducted at Burnley
Campus and other scientific sources including plant, soil,
climate and water references. Originally the project was
designed to cater for just the Melbourne and Geelong climate
areas. The computer interface development work was carried out
at the Department of (now Computing and) Information Systems,
University of Melbourne, Parkville. From early 2008, Drs Jon
Pearce and Wally Smith (Interactive Design Lab, University of
Melbourne) and John Murphy (Design4Use) set about the process of
interpreting the mathematical watering model into a user-
friendly web application. This include