Effects of Continuous Flushing on the Sediment Removal Efficiency in Settling Basins of Small Scale Irrigation Projects; A Case Study of Kiriku-Kiende Irrigation Project, Embu County, Kenya

Abstract

Reservoir based irrigation schemes present sediment problems of various types These problems affect the performance of the settling basin in sediment deposition One of the major problems is the deposition of sediment in the basin and consequent loss of storage capacity The design of settling basin involves determination of a combination of width depth and length of the basin for desired removal efficiency of sediment above a given size The aim of this study was to compare the effect of continuous removal of sediment from a basin to that of periodic removal A physical model that was sized to resemble the settling basin of Kiriku Kiende irrigation project was set up in the Civil Engineering laboratory of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology The physical processes for this research involved five experiments on sediment settling in different settling time and same inflow rate The results obtained shows that settling tanks with continuous sediment removal have a higher sediment removal efficiency of against for those without a flushing component