Drip Irrigation Technology: Principles, Design, and Evaluation

Abstract

In Egypt, drip irrigation is widely accepted as the most efficient irrigation technique, as it allows high uniformity of water and nutrient application. During the last 42 years, many advances have taken place in the availability, quality, management, and performance of drip systems in Egypt. Recently, several experimental efforts have been made in Egypt to develop drip irrigation systems and use its latest types to irrigate various crops. This chapter gives a fast version of drip irrigation technology (principles, design, and evaluation). At the beginning, this chapter reviews basic principles and system components. Also, this chapter describes the different types of drip irrigation system and the latest types of drip irrigation systems in Egypt, ultra-low drip irrigation (ULDI) system and mobile drip irrigation system (MDIS) and those concepts, design and characteristics and history of these new types in Egypt. The second section of this chapter describes the preliminary and final design steps for drip irrigation system. The last section contains evaluation parameters of the drip irrigation system. Those parameters are determination of the net depth of each irrigation application, irrigation water requirements, evaluation of emitters by pressure–discharge relationship, manufacturer’s coefficient of variation, emission uniformity, lateral emitter flow variation, and water application efficiency.