IRRIGATION

ENGINEERING

Course Instructor: Engr. Arif Asghar Gopang

 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
At the end of this lecture students will be able:

 To describe base period, delta of crop, duty of water,

relationship between delta and duty and factors affecting
duty and importance of duty for the design of channel

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 WATER REQUIREMENT OF CROPS

 Water requirements of crops means the total quantity and the way in
which a crop requires water, from the time it is sown to the time it is
harvested.

 In other words, different crops will have different water requirements

and the same crop may have different water requirements at different
places of the same country.

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 DEFINITION OF TERMS USED IN WATER
REQUIREMENTS OF CROPS
CROP PERIOD
The time period from the instant of sowing to the instant of
harvesting is called crop period.

BASE PERIOD
The time period between the first watering of a crop at its time of
sowing to the final watering of a crop before harvesting is called base
period. It is denoted by B (in days)

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 DELTA OF A CROP (𝛥)

o The total depth of water required by a crop to come to a

maturity is called its delta.

o It is the quantity of water required for the full fledged

nourishment of the crop.

o It is expressed in cm or inches and represented by 𝛥.

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6
 DUTY OF WATER

 o It is the relationship between the volume of water and the

area of the crop it matures.

o It also may be defined as the number of hectares of land

irrigated for full growth of a given crop by supply of 1 /sec of
water continuously during the entire base period (B) of that
crop.

o Its unit is hectres/cumec and it is expressed by D.

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 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DUTY AND DELTA

 Letthere be a crop of base period B days.

Let one cumec of water be applied to this crop on the field for
B days
Now, the volume of water applied to this crop during B days
V = (1 60 60 24 B) days
= 86400 B (cubic meters)
By definition of duty, one cubic meters of water supplied for B
days matures D hectares of land.
So, this quantity of water (V) matures D hectares of land or D
square meters of area.
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 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DUTY AND DELTA

 Totaldepth of water applied on this land

=
=
= meters
Therefore,
Delta (𝛥) = meters
Or Delta (𝛥) = cm
Where,
𝛥 is in m or cm
B is days
D is in hectares/cumec 9
 Example 01: Find the delta for a crop when its duty is 864
hectares/cumec on the field, the base period of this crop is 120
days.

Data:
D = 864 hectares/cumec
B = 120 days
Find 𝛥 for a crop.
Solution: As we know that,
Delta (𝛥) = m
=
= 1.2 m

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 FACTORS AFFECTING DUTY OF WATER

Type of Crop

Duty will be less for more water consuming crop and vice
versa.

Useful rainfall

Useful rainfall is water which is directly falling on the irrigated

land. More the useful rainfall, less the irrigation water and thus
more will the duty of water.
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 Type of soil

If there is high permeable soil (sand soil), then will be more

percolation of irrigation water and hence duty will be less.
If there is clay soil, there will be less percolation of water and
hence duty will be greater.

Efficiency of cultivation method

If cultivation method is faulty and less efficient, resulting in the
wastage of water, the duty of water will be less.
The irrigation water should be used economically in order to
obtain more duty of water. 12
Approximate values for Duty for certain important
crops

Crop Duty in hectares/cumec

Rice 900
Wheat 1800
Cotton 1400
Sugarcane 800

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 IMPORTANCE OF DUTY

o It helps in designing an efficient canal irrigation system.

o If available water (discharge) at the head of a main canal, and
the overall duty for all the crops required to be irrigated in
different seasons is known, then the area which can be
irrigated can be calculated.
o Inversely, if we know crops area required to be and their
duties, we can work out the discharge for designing the
channel.

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ANY
QUESTIONS ?
THANKS