Evaluating whole field irrigation performance using statistical inference of inter-furrow infiltration variation

Abstract

Inter-furrow infiltration variability is often ignored during the evaluation and optimisation of furrow irrigation. Existing techniques for estimating infiltration parameters are generally too intensive in measurement and computation for routine application at the field scale and have therefore primarily been used to study the behaviour of single furrows. This paper identifies the inter-furrow infiltration variation within typical furrow-irrigated fields and determines that this variation can be adequately described using a log-normal distribution. A procedure to predict whole field furrow infiltration characteristics using minimum field measurements is then presented. The technique uses a single advance measurement for single furrows and the log-normal probability distribution to predict the statistical distribution of infiltration functions across the field based on the measured infiltration curve for one or more fully evaluated furrows. This technique also considers the infiltration curve over appropriate ranges of opportunity time. Simulations using the predicted infiltration parameters demonstrate more accurate estimates of the whole field efficiency and uniformity than those extrapolated from infiltration measurements on a limited number of furrows as sampled in a conventional evaluation. Surface irrigation; Furrow irrigation; Infiltration

Simulation of Irrigation Uniformity and Optimization of Irrigation Technical Parameters Based on the SIRMOD Model under Alternate Furrow Irrigation

“…Infiltration properties are the most significant soil parameters in the simulation, design and evaluation of surface irrigation methods (Holzapfel et al, ; Berehe et al, ). Even for the same type of soil, infiltration properties can differ with different irrigation methods (Gillis et al, ). In surface irrigation, the advance of the water and the recession after the time of cutoff will be influenced by the infiltration of the water (Elliott and Walker, ; Bakker et al, ).…”

Impact of infiltration parameters and Manning roughness on the advance trajectory and irrigation performance for closed-end furrows

“…Meanwhile, many researchers clearly demonstrated that soil infiltration parameters and Manning roughness vary considerably between the furrows within the same field (Schwankl et al, 2000;Oyonarte & Mateos, 2003;Mateos & Oyonarte, 2005;Wang et al, 2009;Zhu et al, 2009;Gillies et al, 2011), and indicated that the variations between furrows are significant factors for the advance trajectory and performance of surface irrigation. Previous researches have often used representative values of infiltration parameters and roughness to simulate the advance trajectory and performance for the whole field scale, thereby ignore the inter-furrow variability (Álvarez, 2003;Eldeiry et al, 2005;Sánchez et al, 2009;Reddy et al, 2013).…”

SISCO: surface irrigation simulation, calibration and optimisation

“…Two important factors which fall into the latter category are soil infiltration and surface roughness. Unfortunately these factors are not simple to quantify and can vary significantly over space and time (Gillies et al 2011). Simulation models can be used in a rough investigative manner with generic soil intake parameters.…”