EVALUATION OF WATER ADVANCE MODELS FOR FURROW IRRIGATION SYSTEM
EVALUATION OF WATER ADVANCE MODELS FOR FURROW IRRIGATION SYSTEM
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Date
2008-06
Authors
OGBE, VICTOR BAMEYI
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Abstract
The problems of on-farm water management and irrigation system design
parameters which are often chosen with limited or no analysis of a unique local condition
leads to the poor performance of most irrigation systems today. In this study, three furrow
irrigation water advance models, referred to as Walker and Skogerboe model, Michael’s
advance model and Philip and Farrell model were verified and evaluated for their
prediction of water advance distances under specific field conditions at the Galma
Irrigation Scheme, kilometer 16 along Zaria – Jos road.
Fifteen irrigation events were monitored. Several parameters were measured
including the furrow geometry, slope, furrow length, furrow width, advance and
recession time, and infiltration characteristics. The models were applied to all the events
and the results were compared to those obtained from the field measurements. Thereafter,
the predictions by the different models were compared with one another. The indices
used in evaluating the performance of the models include slope of the best-fit line ,
standard error of estimate , coefficient of determination R2 and the absolute error E (%).
This study shows that the Walker and Skogerboe model performed best in
predicting advance distances with average indices values of = 1.0381, = 0.42, R2 =
0.9985 and E = 4.40%. It is followed by Michael’s advance model which performed
reasonably well with average indices values of = 1.0175, = 1.40, R2 = 0.9837 and E
= 9.67% while the performance of Philip and Farrell was poor with average indices
values of = 0.3508, = 7.43, R2 = 0.9499 and E = 37.08%. Considering the overall
suitability of the models to the field condition encountered in this study, both the Walker
and Skogerboe model, and Michael’s model are suitable for predicting water advance
distance.
Description
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN
AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY
ZARIA
NIGERIA.
JUNE, 2008
Keywords
EVALUATION, WATER, ADVANCE MODELS, FURROW IRRIGATION SYSTEM