IMPROVING IRRIGATION WATER CONVEYANCE AND DISTRIBUTION EFFICIENCY USING LINED CANALS AND BURIED PIPES UNDER EGYPTIAN CONDITION

Abstract

A field experiment was carried out at El-Mahmoudia command area at El-Beheira governorate, Egypt, during two growing seasons summer and winter 2014/2015, to Improve irrigation water conveyance efficiency using lined canal and upvc buried pipes under Egyptian conditions. The experiment consists of three types of on-field water distribution canals (Merwas); Earthen canal, Lined canal and Upvc buried pipes. Six Evaluation parameters were measured; conveyance efficiency, water saving, irrigation time, land saving, cropping intensity and crop yield, the financial analysis had been applied. The result showed that the conveyance efficiencies were 65%, 92.2% and 98.7% in winter, while the conveyance efficiencies were 59.6%, 87.1% and 89.7% in summer, for earthen canal, lined canal and buried pipes, respectively. The impact of development on reducing conveyance losses comparing with earthen canal were 68.1% and 96.3 for summer, while it was 77.7% and 96.3 for winter, under lined canal and upvc buried pipes, respectively. The impact of improvement on decreasing irrigation time was ranged from 50% to 60% for the different field crops. The benefits of land saving were about 0.8% of the total saved area after development by lined canal and 1.4% of the total command area saved after development by upvc buried pipes, it had become available for agriculture. The highest profit as a percent was obtained under maize, for both lined canal and buried pipes, respectively.-1400-1. INTRODUCTION gypt is characterized as arid climate with very limited rainfall. The vast majority of the country is desert land, and crop production is virtually fully dependent on irrigation. Egypt gets more than 95 % of its annual renewable water resources from the Nile. Egypt may face significant water scarcity within the foreseeable future, however, because of the combination of a more or less fixed supply of fresh water and increasing demands for water owing to population growth and reclamation of desert land for agricultural production. The major water user in the Egyptian economy agriculture is the largest user of water consuming 86.5% of the total water amount used, compared to 5.8% and 7.7% for municipal and industrial uses, respectively FAO Aquastat, (2008). Ibrahim, (2003). in the traditional irrigation system in the old lands, water is delivered to farmers on a rotational basis, which is normally applied at the branch canals. This system has some disadvantages such as; severe shortage of water at the tail reaches; low conveyance efficiency; high operational cost; and excessive water loss to drains. Tremendous efforts should be implemented towards effective management for irrigation system Hvidt (1998), have shown that farmers have applied 50 % to 250 % more water than required by the crops and for the purpose of leaching. According to Ali (2011), the conveyance efficiency in irrigation projects is poor due to seepage, percolation, cracking and damaging of the earth channel. Seepage losses in irrigation water conveyance system are very significant, as it forms the major portion of the water loss in the irrigation system the geometric factors involved in the estimation of the seepage are the shape and dimensions of the irrigation channel and the depth of the water table and the depth to an impervious layer. Anonymous,(2014).the conveyance efficiency in the unlined irrigation system, which is about 56 %, can be increased to 88 %, when the whole system is lined. Therefore, there is considerable scope of improving the efficiency of water use by lining the system Rahman et al. (2011), revealed that average conveyance efficiency of UPVC buried pipe ranged from 94.46 % to 95.37 % and rate of water loss ranged from 5.45 % to 9.55 per cent. The