Back in early 2020, the training pitches at OGC Nice were feeling the strain. The 300 days of annual sun and unreliable rainfall had taken their toll. They called on the expert help of Scott Brooks, who’d made a name at Arsenal and Tottenham among others, and has become known for championing a sustainable approach. His remit was nothing less than a comprehensive overhaul of the irrigation systems to bring the pitches to the expected quality.
“When I arrived in Nice, there were some real issues with water and grass plant health,” Brooks remembers. “We had 3.5 natural pitches and weren’t getting the water where it needed to go, as well as issues with hydrophobic soils, high pH and salinity. I needed to solve all this while using less resources in the process.”
He decided to continue his successful approach of scouring the globe for the most sustainable solutions that, through increased efficiencies, end up paying for themselves.
Two years later, the results are there for all to see, but it was no easy ride.
Water in the right quantities
Part of the issue lay in the wildly fluctuating water availability. Despite its southerly location, Nice actually gets the same annual rainfall as Paris, but with huge seasonal disparity – and notably reduced availability in the thirsty hotter seasons. Additionally, Scott Brooks chose a calculated risk to shift to a hybrid pitch, which provided further water penetration challenges: “We were trying to produce a surface which is high performing but that takes a lot of resources too as you’re effectively working with a sand sieve,” he observes. “With my philosophy of being more sustainable and efficient in terms of budget, I was starting to look for systems which could help us.”
Scott Brooks inspects the state of his hybrid pitch.
Checking on the AQUA4D® system.
Ringing the changes
In a very short time, the entire approach at OGC Nice underwent a drastic transformation. First came a new ring-main and irrigation tanks to increase capacity and allow more simultaneous sprinkler use, with the objective of irrigating all in early morning. Further new sustainable additions came in the form of electric lawnmowers and biological fertilisers.
The true game changer, however, came when Brooks introduced the first AQUA4D® system into a football context. This Swiss innovation has become renowned in the agricultural technology world for improving water penetration, so based on glowing reviews OGC Nice took an educated guess that the results could be replicated in turf.
Innovative water treatment
AQUA4D® technology reduces the size of water clusters to improve penetration into soil or substrate micropores. The same water treatment also more efficiently dissolves minerals and nutrients, which then positively impacts plant health.
“With AQUA4D I’ve noticed a real improvement in water efficiency across the site and I really feel we’re getting the water where we need to get it – in the root zone. This means healthier grasses and a better-quality pitch,” observes Scott Brooks.
“Efficiency squared”: AQUA4D® installation at OGC Nice
The initial irrigation improvements took watering times down from 2.5 hours to just 30 minutes. The addition of AQUA4D® enabled a further reduction of 7 minutes straight away, based on estimations that AQUA4D® increases water efficiency by 30% on average. Thanks to its effect on minerals, the system also helped unlock nutrients and boost fertiliser uptake.
“It’s not just using less water, it’s the efficiency,” says Brooks. “It’s reduced watering timings but we’re also getting more benefits in terms of what’s going onto the pitch because we can get the water into the soil easier. It’s just efficiency squared – using less resource and getting the same or better output.”
A sustainable future?
With football so much in the public eye, Brooks believes he and his colleagues have a particular responsibility. “If we can show the good work we’re doing here in Nice, this may help sustainability drives in sport and elsewhere. Football can send a good message to the world that these are the things we need to be doing.”
He’s optimistic that professional sport is finally pulling its weight in terms of water efficiency, whether through rainwater collection and recycling, permavoid systems, or innovative precision technologies. And with water scarcity on the rise and water quality dwindling, these novel approaches may soon be commonplace rather than a nice-to-have.
“I wanted to achieve something special very quickly to show the market it can be done, and without spending millions or sacrificing anything,” Brooks concludes, adding that all these sustainable approaches and resource savings have also resulted in the best turf ever: “In terms of grass quality in Nice we’ve never seen anything like it, so for me that’s a good news story all day long.”
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Find out more about AQUA4D: www.aqua4d.com
Watch an interview with Scott Brooks here: https://youtu.be/GDewo9uubRw
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Animation: How AQUA4D® increases water efficiency
France
Football
Precision Irrigation
“With AQUA4D I’ve noticed a real improvement in water efficiency across the site and I really feel we’re getting the water where we need to get it – in the root zone. This means healthier grasses and a better-quality pitch.”