Improving Irrigation Performance by Using Adaptive Border Irrigation System

Abstract

Shortages of water resources and labor make it urgent to improve irrigation efficiency and automation. To respond to this need, this study demonstrates the development of an adaptive border irrigation system. The inflow is adjusted based on the functional relationship between the advance time deviation and the optimal adjustment inflow rate, thereby avoiding the real-time calculation of infiltration parameters required by traditional real-time control irrigation systems. During the irrigation process, the inflow rate is automatically adjusted based only on the advance time deviation of the observation points. The proposed system greatly simplifies the calculation and reduces the requirements for field computing equipment compared with traditional real-time control irrigation systems. Field validation experiments show that the proposed system provides high-quality irrigation by improving the application efficiency, distribution uniformity, and comprehensive irrigation performance by 11.3%, 10.7%, and 11.0%, respectively. A sensitivity analysis indicates that the proposed system maintains a satisfactory irrigation performance for all scenarios of variations in natural parameters, flow rates, and border length. Due to its satisfactory irrigation performance, robustness, facile operation, and economical merit compared with traditional real-time control irrigation systems, the proposed system has the potential to be widely applied.