Today’s water management challenges and tomorrow’s differ greatly from those of the last decades. A growing number of poor people and continued environmental degradation imply that the finite natural resources available to humans and ecosystems will not support business as usual for much longer. Thinking differently of water is a requirement if we want to reverse these trends and achieve our triple goal of food security, poverty reduction and conserving environmental integrity.

United Plantations fully appreciates that much more can be done in terms of water productivity. In order to maximize the available water resources, United Plantations has, since 1913, gone to great length to construct an extensive system of watergates, bunds, weirs, canals and drains hereby enabling us to harvest and optimize the usage of rain water.

Reservoir at Jendarata Estate

In addition, leguminous cover crops are established in all our immature plantings to conserve moisture.


Extensive planting of leguminous cover crops

It is in this context, it is important to mention that except for the nursery areas, none of United Plantations’ planted areas under oil palms or coconuts are irrigated. All our areas are under rain-fed agriculture, thus making use of whatever water comes naturally from above. We are continuously working to mitigate our water footprint related to mill waste, maintaining buffers along natural waterways, harvesting rainwater, frugal domestic water usage and judicious use of pesticides and weedicides.

The consumptive use of water (evapotranspiration) of these crops ranges from 120-150 mm per month. To meet requirements, the monthly rainfall should equal or preferably exceed this figure, failing which moisture stress would occur. The rainfall in the UP Group ranges from 1,600 to 2,500 mm per year, with the average being 2,000 mm. Weirs have been constructed across the collections drains to harvest rainfall and hold back water to raise the water table.

Drip irrigation system

Rain Harvesting

As part of our effort to conserve water resources and minimise wastage we have embarked on a programme to fit workers’ housing with tanks to store harvested rain water which is especially beneficial during periods of prolonged dry weather.

Water tanks are supplied for rain water harvesting

Monitoring of Water Quality

Clean water is critical to sustain all kinds of life form on Earth. In rural Indonesia thousands of local residents are dependent on water supplies from lakes and rivers. Maintaining a clean and uninterrupted supply of water constitutes one of the most critical components in sustainable palm oil production.

The Biodiversity team has developed a "Hydrology map" and identified a number of permanent sites for sampling water quality. Using state-of-the-art equipment, the team measures and records organic, inorganic and physical pollution parameters in the field.

Potential trace elements and toxins are measured with a spectrophotometer in the laboratory. In the event of a sudden deterioration in water quality, the team will identify the source of pollution and initiate a process to rectify the problem.

This includes identifying any unusual organic contamination, usually due to empty fruit bunches that mistakenly have slid into a stream or if an unusual high level of inorganic contamination is detected, it is usually a result of excessive wash-out of fertilizer. Such information is communicated to the respective estate manager, allowing them to rectify a potential problem within a very short time period.

In our pursuit to conserve this depleting precious gift, every effort is being done to educate our residence to be frugal on its usage. Old water pipes, water tanks, faulty taps are being replaced from time to time to arrest leakages. We aim to reduce the consumption in the coming years with more awareness programmes.

Monitoring water quality

Click here to view the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) on riparian maintenance.
Click here to view the Conservation of Riparian/Rehabilitation Report

Monitoring of Water Consumption

Water consumption rate in our Indonesian operation has improved over the recent years whereas the mill water consumption rate in our Malaysian operations has improved with the phasing out of the older mill and the commissioning of the new Optimill.

Mill - Water Consumption in Processing of FFB (mt water/mt FFB processed)

Plantations - Domestic Water Consumption in UP Malaysia