Author
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CLEMMENS, ALBERT |
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Submitted to: Decennial National Irrigation Symposium
Publication Type: Proceedings Publication Acceptance Date: 11/16/2000 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: The irrigation community is often criticized for not using water efficiently. There is often a misconception that the only way to improve irrigation efficiency is to convert to a pressurized system. However, with proper design and management, surface irrigation systems can perform well. One surface method, level-basin irrigation, has been shown to be capable of fhigh irrigation efficiencies. It has also demonstrated reduced labor costs and increased yields over more traditional surface irrigation methods. This paper documents studies that have been performed on level basin irrigation systems. It also presents a new irrigation method, drain-back level basins, which includes a surface drainage system. The advantages of this system are lighter water applications, reduced development cost, and protection of crops against long inundations from rainfall or over-irrigation. The paper should be of interest to agriculturalists, consulting engineers, irrigation ndesigners, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and others. Ultimately, more appropriate irrigation methods, such as those described here, will conserve water and benefit the environment. Technical Abstract: Level-basin irrigation systems have been touted as a highly efficiency method of surface irrigation. However, adoption has been slow and performance improvements have not been automatic. When the systems are well designed and appropriate changes in management are made, the resulting systems can achieve good performance. Adoption has been limited by the perceived high cost of conversion from existing sloping surface systems. The new drain-back level basin systems have greatly reduced development costs while providing improved performance over traditional level basins in some cases. This paper describes the adoption and resulting performance of various types of level basin irrigation systems over the last decade- the successes and failures - and discusses potential application of this technology. |
