# Is there a metric analog to the acre-foot?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-metric-analog-to-the-acre-foot/616428
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 21, 2012, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-metric-analog-to-the-acre-foot/616428 "2012-03-21T17:49:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@caveman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caveman)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2012, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-metric-analog-to-the-acre-foot/616428/1 "2012-03-21T17:49:09Z")
I was doing some reading about water use planning and aquifer recharge recently, where the acre-foot as a common unit of volume. For similar discussions out there in the SI world, is there a similar conventionally-used unit of volume (a gigaliter?), or just a whole lot of cubic meters?
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### Author:  [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-metric-analog-to-the-acre-foot/616428/2 "2012-03-21T17:53:23Z")
hectare-meter
> **[Convert acre foot to hectare meter - Conversion of Measurement Units](https://www.convertunits.com/from/acre+foot/to/hectare+meter)**
>
> Do a quick conversion: 1 acre feet = 0.123348185532 hectare meters using the online calculator for metric conversions. Check the chart for more details.
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### Author:  [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2012, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-metric-analog-to-the-acre-foot/616428/3 "2012-03-21T19:11:57Z")
Hectares and meters are the analogs to acres and feet, respectively, but I’ve never seen reference to a hectare-meter of water. Large volumes of water are simply described in cubic meters or cubic km, depending on how much you’re talking about.
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### Author:  [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2012, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-metric-analog-to-the-acre-foot/616428/4 "2012-03-21T19:40:48Z")
And of course an acre isn’t a square unit either, so an acre-foot is really a furlong-chain-foot. 😃
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [March 21, 2012, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-metric-analog-to-the-acre-foot/616428/5 "2012-03-21T20:10:08Z")
Wow, I’m not the only one who actually knows what an acre is?
Of course, an acre isn’t inherently tied to a particular shape, so you could equally well say that an acre is 99 inch-miles.
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### Author:  [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2012, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-metric-analog-to-the-acre-foot/616428/6 "2012-03-22T00:19:18Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Of course, an acre isn’t inherently tied to a particular shape…
Well, _yours_ may not be, but since I prefer not to turn my Ox team and plough too often I’ll stick with having them a furlong long by four rods wide (or by one chain wide if you’re into that new-fangled measurement)… if it was good enough for Edward Longshanks… 😃
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### Author:  [@Daylate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daylate)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2012, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-metric-analog-to-the-acre-foot/616428/7 "2012-03-22T01:52:45Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Wow, I’m not the only one who actually knows what an acre is?
I thought everybody knew that an acre is ten square chains.
Actually, this worked out pretty well for those old-time surveyors. All they had to do was measure the width and length of the area in chains, multiply these together to get square chains, then just move the decimal one place to the left to get acres. Of course, with an irregular area this was a tad more complicated, but the last step was still just to move the decimal one place over.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2012, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-metric-analog-to-the-acre-foot/616428/8 "2012-03-22T02:46:11Z")
And that’s about the only place in the entire “customary system” where you can do anything by just moving the decimal point. Seriously, every integer up to 12, and every even integer up to 24, shows up somewhere in the conversion factors. And don’t even get me started on 231 cubic inches in a gallon.
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### Author:  [@Cugel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cugel)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2012, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-metric-analog-to-the-acre-foot/616428/9 "2012-03-22T08:31:05Z")
> [@caveman](#):
>
> is there a similar conventionally-used unit of volume (a gigaliter?)
A new dam near my city uses gigalitres
[http://www.actew.com.au/Our%20Projects/Enlarged%20Cotter%20Dam.aspx](http://www.actew.com.au/Our%20Projects/Enlarged%20Cotter%20Dam.aspx)
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### Author:  [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2012, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-metric-analog-to-the-acre-foot/616428/10 "2012-03-22T09:25:18Z")
During the Brisbane floods when they had to do water releases to avoid possible damage to a dam the news reports used gigalitres to describe the amounts of water that was released.
> **[Basin authority considers 2,800 gigalitre release](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-18/murray-darling-water/3577388)**
>
> The Murray-Darling Basin Authority has confirmed it is considering returning 2,800 gigalitres of water back to the environment.