The Aquaduct 2020 story

It has to start with Gerard van den Bosch’s talent for water.

Always passionate about watering the earth, when he was only 13 years old, Gerard attracted the attention of Adelaide University professors, for Australia’s first commercially viable drip irrigation system which he built for his father’s horticultural business. He arrived home from school in remote North-East Tasmania one afternoon to find the academics on the doorstep asking questions.

Gerard turned to dairy farming in his early twenties and after irrigating a small section of his farm during the 1972 drought, neighbours asked if he would design systems for them. This led to the establishment of Bosch Irrigation in 1977.

In the 1980s as an award-winning dairy farmer and irrigation specialist, Gerard was invited to be keynote speaker at the North American Grasslands conference with 750 delegates. He was also invited to become a member of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers.

Gerard getting an early start in irrigation in a migrant camp, Victoria, 1951.

A World First

The introduction of the relocatable factory

Gerard has been in business for himself in farming, irrigation design and installation for most of his life. In Tasmania in the 80-90s he was also making PVC pipe, largely to supply the irrigation market. His business grew steadily and moved to New Zealand.

In 2010 Gerard’s Bosch Irrigation set up Aquaduct NZ which went into large scale HDPE pipe production and completed pipe and most of the installation of two large schemes in Canterbury. He used a new concept of a relocatable pipe factory to produce pipe on site and thereby hugely reduce installation costs.

Read more about our portable factory
Modern History

The development of Aquaduct 2020

The second of our intial big projects, the Central Plains Water scheme, started in 2014, was subcontracted to Downer which didn’t pay the last payment of around $2m and put the companies, Aquaduct NZ and Bosch Irrigation, into receivership. That’s an on-going issue but in the meantime, the receivers sold Gerard’s companies to Steel & Tube.

Our team worked for the new owners for 18 months but that didn’t last as S&T were headed in a different direction, one which Gerard was convinced was unprofitable.

And so it proved to be. 3 years and substantial investment later S&T put the pipe extrusion factory up for tender. Gerard was the successful tenderer and Aquaduct 2020 has risen from the ashes of Bosch Irrigation and Aquaduct NZ.

Aquaduct 2020 will focus on Large Bore High Density Polyethylene Pipe (HDPE) manufacturing, however, we will still be available for consultation, design, and project organization using Gerard’s team’s extensive contacts in the pipe installation industry.

2010

Since

200+ km

of pipe manufactured

1600mm

Diameter large bore pipe
“The challenges of cost-effective efficiency, and taming waterflow for productive land use, motivate my team at every turn. The pleasure of seeing lush pasture, vigorous crops and prosperous land users, cannot be underestimated.”
(Gerard van den Bosch)

Manufacture of large bore HDPE pipes onsite

Aquaduct 2020 Ltd

Address

P O Box 17,
Amberley, NZ 7441

Phone

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