Water Resources Management 6: 185-199, 1992 185

© 1992 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Appraisal and Optimization of Agricultural Water

Use in Large Irrigation Schemes: I. Theory
M. MENENTI 1, J. CHAMBOULEYRON 2, J. MOR,~BITO 2, L. FORNERO 2,
and L. STEFANINI 3
DLO The Winand Staring Centrefor lntegrated Land, Soil and Water Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands
2 Instituto Nacional de Ciencia y TOcnica Hidricas, Mendoza, Argentina
3 Dipartimento di Economia, Universitd di Urbino, Urbino, Italy

(Received: 2 September 1991; in final form: 28 March 1992)

Abstract. A new approach on the functioning of an irrigation scheme has been presented. A mathematical
representation of the irrigation system based on measured system properties, such as losses due to
percolation and to poor management, in only a part of the system is used. This mathematical representation
is termed an equivalent irrigation network. The merit of this approach is that it reduces the number
of required streamflow measurements.
When water amounts are measured for a number of paths in the irrigation network, so-called path
efficiencies are obtained. The path efficiency is a measure of the amount of water lost along the way.
The numerical model that simulates the operation of the irrigation system is based on the path efficiencies.
This simulation model in turn is used to calculate different objective functions, corresponding with
different optimization goals, like uniform water distribution, minimum groundwater extraction, minimum
cost of water supply.
This paper gives the theoretical background of the approach. The application to an actual irrigation
scheme will be discussed in a second paper.

Key words. Irrigation, mathematical model, path efficiency, percolation, water flow, water extraction,
water supply.

1. Introduction
M o n i t o r i n g the p e r f o r m a n c e o f an i r r i g a t i o n system is difficult b e c a u s e a n a c c u r a t e
a p p r a i s a l o f the s y s t e m ' s o p e r a t i o n is quite c o m p l i c a t e d , as for e x a m p l e s h o w n
b y C l a y t o n (1981). M a n y a n d quite different f u n c t i o n a l units o f the system have
to be assessed, while for m a n y o f t h e m it is n o t o b v i o u s which m e a s u r i n g p r o c e d u r e
s h o u l d be a p p l i e d ( C l a y t o n a n d Petry, 1981; Bottrall, 1981; F A O , 1982). L e n t o n
(1982) a n d B h u i y a n (1982) p r o p o s e d p e r f o r m a n c e indices t h a t involve m e a s u r e m e n t s
o f the a m o u n t o f w a t e r d e l i v e r e d a n d c r o p yield only. U n s a t i s f a c t o r y p e r f o r m a n c e
o f p r o j e c t m a n a g e m e n t o r g a n i z a t i o n o r o f o p e r a t i o n a n d m a i n t e n a n c e will be
disclosed b y m e a s u r i n g w a t e r d i s t r i b u t i o n a n d c r o p yield. These m e a s u r e m e n t s ,
h o w e v e r , will n o t necessarily p o i n t o u t the a c t u a l b o t t l e n e c k s .
A t present, the m a n a g e m e n t o f i r r i g a t i o n w a t e r in i r r i g a t i o n p r o j e c t s larger t h a n
10 000 h a is b a s e d u p o n r e l a t i v e l y little i n f o r m a t i o n . G e n e r a l l y , very little i n f o r m a t i o n
a b o u t v a r i a t i o n in space a n d t i m e o f o n f a r m w a t e r r e q u i r e m e n t s is available.
I n f o r m a t i o n o n the f u n c t i o n i n g o f the different sectors o f the i r r i g a t i o n n e t w o r k
186 M. MENENTIET AL.
is often lacking. The managing body therefore cannot attune irrigation water
allocation to the actual water requirement. A widely applied solution to overcome
this difficulty is to give more water than necessary and to leave the responsibility
for actual management of the water to the farmers. On-farm irrigation scheduling
is therefore regarded by many authors as the solution to irrigation management
problems (Zimbelman, 1987). Improvement of on-farm irrigation, however, will
not necessarily improve the overall efficiency of an irrigation scheme.
In this paper a new approach is presented to assess the performance of an irrigation
scheme. The approach is basically a three-stage procedure:

(A) determination of water losses along a path in the irrigation network by

following a parcel of water from the project intake to the root zone;
(B) the data on water losses along paths in the irrigation network are used to
construct a simulation model for the flow of water in the entire scheme;
(C) the simulation model is coupled with an optimization procedure to establish
an optimal water allocation scheme.

The measurements along each path include both percolation and operational losses.
Improved water management should therefore be designed by taking into account
all system characteristics, including the permanent causes of operational losses.
The present approach was developed while studying two large irrigation schemes
in Argentina and the irrigation infrastructure of the Po river plain in Italy.
The first paper will discuss the theoretical background while a companion paper
will give the application of the theory to actual irrigation projects. In the second
paper (Menenti et al., 1992), the results for the Argentinian schemes will be discussed.
A detailed synopsis of the study in Italy has been presented by Bernardi et al.
(1985).

2. Determination of Water Losses: Path Effieieneies of Irrigation Systems

2.1. SYSTEMDESCRIPTIONAND NOMENCLATURE
In this section, we describe a simplified representation of an irrigation scheme that
allows a mathematical description of the streamflow in various waterways. Here
conceptual and theoretical aspects of system schematization are presented: the reader
is referred to our companion paper for the actual description of the Argentinian
network (Menenti et al., 1992). An immediate conceptual schematization of an
irrigation network is that of visualizing the physical connections between the project
water intake (the origin of the network) and the water users (the ends of the network).
The water flows along interconnected canals, the segments of the network. Each
segment forms a link between two branching points. Therefore, a network can
be represented by a set of nodes and a set of links connecting them.
In the following frequent use will be made of the following terms:
A G R I C U L T U R A L WATER USE IN L A R G E IRRIGATION SCHEMES: I 187
equivalent water depth (EDW): amount of water passing (in a given period of time)
the head of an irrigation canal, divided by the area to be irrigated downstream
of this point;
order: the general category of the canals (primary, secondary, ...);
link: the connection between canal heads, from a lower to a higher order;
path: a sequence of links in the irrigation network;
path efficiency: ratio of an equivalent water depth at a given head to the equivalent
water depth at the head of a higher order canal;
tree-shaped network: the representation of a directed network where links do not
form closed paths;
equivalent irrigation network: a tree-shaped directed network, where the path
efficiencies indicate the extent of water losses along the paths.

In our notation, superscripts i or j give the order of the canal and subscripts k
or h give the number of the canal. The orders used were: project intake (0), primary
(1), secondary (2), tertiary (3) canals, farm gate (4) and furrows (5).
A sample of an irrigation scheme is presented in Figure 1. Equivalent water
depths are defined by w i = V~/A~, where V~ is the amount of water flowed past
the head of canal number k of order i per unit time (m 3 t -1) and A~ (m 2) is the
irrigated area downstream. The head of canal k of order i has been labelled x~.
The head x~ of the primary canal number 3 is connected to the head x~ of the

f
' /, ~. r(/
//x0,w 0 x3,w
1 31 Primarycanal no 3
i / ..%~/ , A \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ / ~ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ /

~ ~ - - ~ ~ Terdarycanal no 2

×23,w

Farm

Fig. 1. Scheme of sampling points to measure irrigation water depths at different hierarchical orders
and to determine the path efficiencies of an irrigation system. Water depths are indicated by w~ with
i = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 being the order and k being the canal number in the group of canals of order
i. For example, w~ expresses the water depth at the head of canal number 3 of order 1 (= primary
canal), with its head indicated as xl.
188 M. MENENTI ET AL.

secondary canal number i, and to the head of other canals of order 2. A portion
of the water flowing past x] is actually allocated to Xl2. So there is a connection
between heads x~ and ~ , termed a link. The sequence w°, w], w2, w~, w4, w~ in
Figure 1 indicates that a set of links is involved in water transfer from project
intake to the root zone. Such a sequence of links is termed a 'path'.
Consider first the case of a uniform water allocation policy. The general case
will be discussed later.
In the uniform case, the efficiency of the link between x~ and x 2 is

e~ = (V~I/A~)/(V~/A~) = w 2 / w ~ . (1)

When a path is considered, the order of the first and last heads will not be
contiguous, e.g. a primary and a tertiary canal. We define the efficiency of a path
as the product of the efficiencies of its links. So the efficiency of the path starting
at xj and ending at x~, with j < i, is
e~, hj = ( V ~i / A ki) / ( V ~j/ A h j) ; j < i . (2)
The procedure to construct the equivalent irrigation network can be explained
with the aid of Figure 2. In this figure, flow measurements are assumed to be
carried out at the head of a primary (P) and of a secondary (S) canal. If A P and

~' • "Nzj"~. ~/ ,,,,///'.. ]>~"_..... .... f ~T2=x3

'7 ~ a T3= x<3

JT3 rl =x 3

------ Boundary of grougs of - - Boundary command area o p Primary canal head

tertiary units (T I,T 2 and i"3) ~ Branch of equivalent network o S Secondary canal head
Irrigation canals ...... Irrigation canals o Tk Head of tertiary canal k
=< Flow measurements IF] Farm o x~ Head of canal k of order i

Fig. 2. Relationship between an actual irrigation infrastructure and the equivalent irrigation network:
(A) actual irrigation infrastructure within the command area of a secondary canal; a partition into
three tertiary units (T1, T2 and Ts) is indicated; the area denoted by F is any farm within a tertiary
unit; (B) equivalent network resulting from the indicated partition superimposed on actual infrastructure;
(C) final equivalent network.
AGRICULTURAL WATERUSE IN LARGE IRRIGATION SCHEMES: I 189

A s denote the corresponding irrigated areas then the equivalent water depths are
W p = (VP/A P) and w S = (VS/AS).
Tertiary units are dealt with in a different manner. First they are grouped into
homogeneous sub-areas (e.g. T1,/'2, T3 in Figure 2A). This leads to the equivalent
network depicted in Figure 2B. Flow measurements are assumed to be carried out
at some heads of tertiary canals within each sub-area (Figure 2A). In this way,
the construction of the equivalent network in Figure 2C is completed and the
following path efficiencies are accordingly obtained:

e~, ~ - w2 e~, 2 _ w~ e~, 2 _ w~

wl ' ' (3)
e l , 2 _ w] e14,23 _ w 4

where w~, w~ and w] are the mean values of the equivalent water depths measured
at the heads of the sampled tertiary canals.
To complete the equivalent irrigation network, nodes of the order 4, 5, and 6
are added. Links originating at nodes of order 4 (farm gates) and terminating at
nodes of order 5 describe water transfer from farm gate to furrows (or groups
of them). Links from nodes of order 5 to nodes of order 6 describe water transfer
from furrows to crop root zone. By crop root zone, we mean the soil depth where
crops can directly extract water through the roots.
The definition of irrigation efficiencies for the uniform case was first applied
by Chambouleyron (1969) for practical reasons. In our notation, irrigation efficiencies
(Bos and Nugteren, 1978) are defined, for the uniform case, as

EkV~ , j < i , (4)

vJ
where VJ is the total amount of water conveyed by a canal of order j and E/cV~
is the total amount of water allocated to all the laterals (of order 0 of this particular
canal.

2.2. EQUIVALENCETHEOREMS
Equivalence theorems can be derived to relate our path efficiencies (Equations (1)
and (2)) to the usual definition of irrigation efficiencies (Equation (4)). Let us take
a set {xf . . . . . x/} of N heads of order i, leaving the head of a canal of order i-
1, such as the node x ki-1 in Figure 3. Each link from nodes of order i-1 to nodes
of order (i), such as the links originating at x ki-1 (Figure 3), has a link-efficiency
given by

eh,' ki - 1 _ w~ h = 1 , 2, "", N , (5)

W~-I '
where
190 M. M E N E N T I ET AL.

it
,,•0 • X~
.

Fig. 3. Schematic illustration of a tree-shaped part of an equivalent irrigation network having N nodes
x~,• ..., x~ of order
i originating from the kth node x~i-1 of order i-1.

•
w~ = V~/A~ and w/~-1 = ,,i-l,A
Vk ' ~ k
i-1 "

The definition of the link-efficiency in (5) assumes a uniform water allocation

policy, i.e. the objective of water allocation is to deliver to each node x~ of order
i a volume of water given by

i7~ _ A--~I
A~ V/~i-1 , with V~• = V~"
~i e~', ki-1 (6)

representing the fraction of the total volume available at x ki-1 proportional to the
ratio of the irrigated areas downstream of the node x[ and node x/-1 , respectively.
Equation (6) represents a uniform diversion law.
Although a uniform water allocation policy is applied in many irrigated areas
(see Part II of this paper, Menenti et al., 1992), many different policies are feasible
(Barrow, 1987; Clemmens, 1987; Merriam, 1987). In our notation, a nonuniform
water allocation policy is represented by a general diversion law of the form
I~/~ = J~, /~-1 (V/~-I) (7)

with the functions~,/~-1 constrained to

N,
Xhj~,/-1 i-1
(vk)=v i-1
1

Each policy then (Menenti et al., 1989, 1990) leads to a set of values of the
volumes I~ different from those given by Equation (6), but related to the V/~-1
by the constraint
AGRICULTURAL WATER USE IN LARG E IRRIGATION SCHEMES: I 191
N~

Accordingly, a definition of the link efficiency which does not assume a uniform
water allocation policy is given by
i
i i-1 Wh
eh, k - (8)
~h~i i- l '
'k
where

~"
I~,/_1 _ V~ j~, i-lt'r/-i-l'~
_ k ~Vk ) .

explicit mention of superscript i-1 and of subscript k is required because of Equation

(7).
In terms of the definitions of link and path efficiency, the irrigation efficiency
derived from Equation (4) is

_ ~ Ni w i A i "~ Ni , i A i X Ni i i
XhN_/I VA _ ~'~h=l hZah _ "a-ih=lWheah h=l WhAh (9)
v/-' Xh=l ~'~h" XhNi_l,~i
- ~ h , k i-1 AA" Xh=l(Wh/e~,k
i i i-m) A hi

This is the most general relation between link efficiencies (Equation (8)) and irrigation
efficiencies (Equation (4)).
If a uniform water allocation policy is assumed then Equation (9) is changed
to

~N i . ~N~
h=l V~ h=lW~A~ XhNi=lAhW~i i Ni
= X h ~.~h
IAi/A
/ ~aki - l)Oh,
~ i ki-1 (10)
V~-I X Ni i-1 A~) w i - l r ~ N i .A~) 1
h=l (Wk • k t~"th=l

where we have used the identity

N~
X h A ~ = A~ -1 "
1

In this particular case, the irrigation efficiency is simply the weighted average
of the link efficiencies.
As both the actually delivered quantities of water {V i, ..., V~ ..... V~} and the
quantity of water available at the node x~-1, V~-1, do not depend on the set {I~[,
. . . . .r;~ •.., V~
-i }, the ratio ~N/1 rli/rli-1
" h ' " k (the irrigation efficiency according to Equation
(4) will be the same for any water allocation policy, expressed by means of the
set {V/, ..., V~ ..... ~ } .
192 M. MENENTI ET AL.
It is worthwhile emphasizing that Equation (10) indicates that it is possible to
obtain an estimation of the irrigation efficiency by measuring only a part of the
series {V~..... V~, ..., V~}. This is because an estimation of the value of the weighted
average in Equation (10) can be obtained (see also Figure 2) as

Est i i-1 = ( A )i/ A , )i-1 . q ,i k i-1 , (11)

where M / < Ni, Est [-] means estimation of the variable within brackets and

A/-1 = 1~j A j .i

An equivalence theorem can be derived when more than two orders (as i and
i-1 in Equation (8)) are considered. By connecting adjacent links, a path is constructed
(Figure 2c) from project intake to furrows and crop root zone.
To recall the practical meaning of the orders, we give an example of calculation
of a path efficiency as a product of link efficiencies.
Consider a path from project intake x~ to the crop root zone at an arbitrary
location x RO in the command area of the network. If x~ xS4, x F, x FU are the remaining
nodes of the path, then path efficiency reads:
eRO, I = eRO, FU. eFU, F. _F,T. _T, S. S,P. ~P, I (12)
7,1 7, 1 1, 3 ¢3,5 e5,4 e4, 2 e2, 1 '

where RO = crop root zone (the soil layer from where plants can withdraw water
through the roots)
FU = furrow
F = farm
T = tertiary
S = secondary
P = primary
I = intake.

In a network with N different nodes x~, x 6.... , XN

6 representing the crop root zones,
the project efficiency is usually defined as

e6,0 _ ~hN--/1V6 (13)

z0
where V6 is the soil water replenishment in the crop root zone after water application
at the terminal node x 6. If a uniform water allocation policy is assumed and applying
Equation (1), subsequently to all orders, Equation (13) gives
N N. N
e6,0 _ 1 l~h 6 6 1 1~h V° 6,0 1~h A~ 6,0 (14)
V~I WhAh = V--~I A--~I eh'lA~ = A---~ eh'l "
AGRICULTURALWATERUSE IN LARGE IRRIGATIONSCHEMES: I 193

Equation (14) is analogous to Equation (10), which applies to links between nodes
of adjacent orders.
In the case of a nonuniform water allocation policy, sets o f {I~, ..., I~ .... , ~ }
must be set beforehand. Then an equivalence theorem which is analogous to Equation
(9) can be derived.
A thirds equivalence theorem, proof of which can be found in Chambouleyron
e t a l . , (1983), pertains to the irrigation efficiency between orders i and i-2:

e i, i-2 _ Vi
- (15)

The irrigation efficiency e i, i-2 can be related to the path efficiencies:

e i,/-2 = ~i, i-1 ~i-1, i-2, (16)

where U' i-l, ~i-1, i-2 are mean path efficiencies between orders i and i-1, respectively,
i-1 and/-2.
To obtain the path efficiencies, field measurements of the amount of water reaching
every order appearing in Equation (12) are required.
A major advantage of the theory presented in this section is that it requires
collecting data relating to only part of the irrigation network.
The quantities of equivalent water depth and the network characteristics (expressed
here as link and path efficiencies) can be time dependent. The theory presented
applies to the irrigation network at any particular time.

3. Simulation and Optimization of Water Use in an Irrigation System

3.1. SIMULATIONMODEL
When an equivalent irrigation network, like that in Figure 2c, has been established
and the efficiency of each link has been obtained, soil water replenishment at any
terminal node can be calculated, given the gross water flow at project intake.
The equivalent network, completely defined when the efficiencies of all its links
are known, is a model of the actual irrigation system. Such a model can be applied
to simulate water allocation and to establish optimal water allocation schemes.
The components of the simulation model are:

- the tree-shaped equivalent network;

- the set of path efficiencies, for paths beginning at project intake (nodes of
order 0) and ending at soil level (nodes of order 6);
- a set of parametrized functions describing the path efficiencies (see the
companion paper on Applications; the parameters may depend on the location
of a sub-area within the actual irrigation scheme and on the characteristics
of canal cross-sections or diversion structures and of soils and crops;
194 M. MENENTI ET AL.

- operational rules that characterize the actual irrigation water management,

such as rotational interval or typical (i.e. as actually used by farmers) water
application depths.

The simulation model is applied to describe water conveyance, distribution and

application, and is a direct outcome of what has been measured to assess the
performance of the irrigation system. Scarce information gives a simple equivalent
network, while detailed information on system structure and functioning gives an
equivalent network more similar to the actual infrastructure.

3.2. OPTIMIZATIONPROCEDURE
The equivalent network model can also be used in combination with an optimization
procedure to obtain an optimal water allocation scheme.
Methods to optimize flows in networks are specially suited for this purpose. The
first well-known book on network flow theory and optimization is of Ford and Fulker-
son (1962); for the linear case, see Bazaraa and Jarvis (1977) and Jensen and Barnes
(1980). See also Nemhauser and Wolsey (1988) for additional references. For the
dynamic programming approach, see Denardo (1982) and Dreyfus and Law (1977).
The method described here can be applied to determine which combination of
the outflows at the terminal nodes is required to achieve a given objective. Different
practical objectives are: uniform allocation of surface water: allocation of surface
water to meet crop water requirements: conjunctive allocation of surface and
groundwater to minimize total cost; etc:
The target function to be optimized is a combination of nonlinear functions
of the outflows at the terminal nodes, which are, in general, place and time dependent.
Examples of target functions, all node dependent, include:

- difference between crop water requirements and supply of surface water, giving
the requirement of additional groundwater;
- cost of irrigation water (surface and groundwater);
- benefit of irrigation water use;
- crop yields;
- utility of irrigation water, i.e. a farmer-dependent table or function giving a
score on irrigation water use (English, 1981; Herath, 1981).

The optimization procedure will now be described in some detail. For practical
application of the optimization algorithm, it is convenient to redefine the indices
of the nodes of the tree shaped network representing the equivalent network in
the following way: let

X = {x0, x1, x2, ..., Xn, Xn+l, ..., Xn+m}

be the set of nodes of the equivalent network, where Xl, x 2..... x n are the intermediate
A G R I C U L T U R A L WATER USE IN LARGE IRRIGATION SCHEMES: I 195

nodes and Xn+l, ..., Xn+m are the terminal nodes. The links are denoted by (x i,
xj), where xi, is the starting and xj, the ending node. For a tree-shaped network
it is possible to assign the indices to the nodes so that for each link i < j.
Each link is characterized by an efficiency eO{w), depending in general on the
equivalent water depth w. Each terminal node x k with k ~> n+ 1, has a target function
Ck(W).
The optimization algorithm, which is based on dynamic programming, can handle
any kind of function, both for the e#{w) and for the Ck(W). The nonlinearity of
the link efficiencies and of the target functions allows for a number of aspects
of field irrigation to be taken into account. Examples are water application technique,
soil water balance, and the interrelations between the cost of groundwater extraction
and the groundwater table depth. The latter is specially relevant when dealing with
conjunctive use of groundwater and surface water. The functions ei, j(w) and Ck(W)
can be estimated either from data or by means of submodels. Part II of this paper
(Menenti et al., 1992) will describe these aspects. For the moment, we assume that
they are given functions.
As we have explained in the preceding section, the equivalent network is tree-
shaped. An immediate consequence of this is that

(i) each node (except the first) of the network is the ending node of exactly
one link; and

l
jJ ./I~
/ /
/ /
/ Ix
// ,¢~ iI
// /" \\'-. Si

// ~ tI/
l /" ~o xi
wi
xj "-x.7~.~e~. \.. S.
't "-"
\ \ "C'~o

\\ ~ iI/
\\ \ ~\XiNi
Si \ ~ -~ \\'--~_SiNi
Fig. 4. Schematic illustration of a tree-shaped part of an equivalent irrigation network; S i is the sub-
network originating at node xi; w is the equivalent water depth entering node xi; there are iV/nodes
down-linked to x i and N. sub-networks each one originating at one of the AT/nodes.
196 M. MENENTIET AL.

(ii) each intermediate node x i (i = 1, 2, ..., n) is itself the first node of a tree-
shaped subnetwork (see Figure 4).

Let S i denote the sub-network having x i as the starting node and let xil, xi2, ...,
XiN" be the higher order nodes linked to it. Each node x i has an associated area
l
A i (corresponding to the irrigated area surrounding the sub-network originating
at it) and a volume V i of water entering the (unique) link having x i as its end,
say (xj, xi).
The equivalent water depths are defined by w i = V i / A i and Wik = Vik/Aik and,
at each intermediate node x i of the network, we have the following constraints
Ni
Ai = ~ l k A i k (additive areas)

~l h A ik W ik = Aiejz(wi)w i (volume balances).

Since the network is tree-shaped, a recursive procedure based on dynamic

programming can be applied. The optimization process is segmented into stages,
starting from the terminal nodes and going backward to the origin of the network.
The recursion is initialized by the response functions C k ( w ) at the terminal nodes
(identified by indices k = n+l, n+2, ..., n + m ) for all given and feasible values w
of the equivalent water depth.
During the generic stages of the procedure, we have the situation depicted in
Figure 4, with the xi,, xi2, ..., XiNi being the nodes (i.e. terminals for the first stage)
linked to the intermediate node x i.
The objective of the optimization at each stage is to find the optimum response
Cz{w ) of subnetwork S i (indices i -- 1, 2, ..., n) to each possible value w of the
equivalent water depth entering S i. For any value of the water depth w i entering
the subnetwork, we determine the vector of all water depths wil, wi2, ..., W!Ni
corresponding to the optimum and feasible assignment of the total w i to all the
subnetworks originating at the subsequent nodes xit, xi2 ..... XiN..
• l
If we denote by Cik(Wik ) the optimum response of subnetworl( Sik to the equivalent
water depth wik entering it, then we can compute Ci(wi) by means of the following
recursive formula:

Ci(wi) = opt Cik(Wik)] (Wil , ..., WiNi) e Wi(Wi) , (17)

{Wik } =

where Wi(wi) , for any value of Wi, is the set of all possible Nrvectors (Wi, , Wi2,
.... WfNi) for which the wik are feasible equivalent water depths in the links (x i,
Xik), li = 1, 2, ..., N i .
F u n c t i o n C f w i ) is the optimum response function of the subnetwork beginning
AGRICULTURAL WATER USE IN LARGE IRRIGATION SCHEMES: I 197

Ci1

Ci

w 1

¢
xj
W• ~ ~
..~. ~
~ ~ "-"h'-0•12 ~" N

c
~ l JNi~

XlNi , ~ ~.
WN|
Fig. 5. Illustration of the procedure to calculate the response function Ci(wi) associated to a sub-network
Si; a recursive procedure is applied to the response functions Cit (wl) ..... CiNi (wNi) of the sub-networks
Si ... Siui to obtain Ci (w).

at the node x i. Since the algorithm gives the relationship between any given value
of Cfwi) and the corresponding combination of the (w/k), the best allocation scheme
for any w i reaching node x i is obtained (Figure 5).
After the first stage has been completed for all the nodes x i to which the terminal
nodes are connected, we have computed the functions Ci(wi) needed to start the
second stage: we are in a situation similar to the previous one, with the nodes
of the first stage instead of the terminal ones. After the second stage is completed,
we continue by subsequent stages of the recursion, until the origin of the network
is reached. We then have the o p t i m u m response function of the entire network
Co(wo), for all values of the equivalent water depth w0 entering it.
In case of conjunctive use of groundwater and surface water, the target function
Ck(Wk) at the terminal nodes (k = n+l, ..., n+m) is a function of the requirements
of groundwater, i.e. the difference between water requirement r k and the equivalent
water depth of surface water reaching node x k through link (xi, xk) of the irrigation
network and given by eik(wk) "wk:

Ck(Wk) =~ ~k(rk-eik(Wk)Wk) (k = n+l, ..., n + m ) . (18)

A procedure for the computation of the o p t i m u m response functions Ci(wi) has
been implemented on a personal computer using a F O R T R A N compiler and MS-
DOS. The interested reader can refer to the last author for the source listing and
a detailed description of the computer code.
198 M. MENENTI ET AL.

4. Summary

On the basis of the theory presented in this paper, a formal representation can
be constructed of the available information on irrigation water use which describes
the functioning of an irrigation scheme. As regards the appraisal of the scheme's
performance, the advantage of the proposed approach is that it can be applied
with data collected in parts of the scheme at different orders (in the sense they
are defined in this paper).
The equivalent irrigation network can accommodate quantitative descriptions
of processes affecting irrigation water use in the form of functions describing the
path-efficiencies.
The optimization algorithm presented in this paper can be applied to solve a
variety of optimal irrigation water use problems which can be cast in terms of
target functions depending on the amount of surface water delivered at the terminal
nodes. The solution found by means of the optimization algorithm is the optimum
allocation scheme for the terminal nodes Xn+ 1..... /Xn+m.
In the appraisal of water losses and of system performance in general, the
application of the path-efficiency concept is an improvement in comparison with
the usual definition of irrigation efficiencies since:

- the variability of efficiencies within the command area is explicitly described

by means of the equivalent network;
- it is not necessary to measure streamflow in all the laterals of a particular unit.
- the path efficiencies are not necessarily constant and are nonlinear, time-
dependent functions of variables affecting irrigation water management, such
as streamflow, conveyance distance or soil type.

Examples of application of our approach are presented in a companion paper in

this issue (Menenti et al., 1992).

Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Dr Ir J. Wesseling and to Prof. R. Soncini-Sessa for
their very valuable comments which substantially improved this paper. Mrs M.
J. van Dijk-Janssen is very sincerely acknowledged for her trademark skill and
patience in typing the subsequent versions of this paper.

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