Performance of Drip Irrigation at Werer, Middle Awash, Ethiopia

Abstract

Agriculture is the main contributor of the Ethiopian economy as it accounts for about 55% of the GDP, 60% of the foreign exchange earnings and provides livelihood to 85% of the population. The field experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance of drip irrigation systems werer agricultural research station, middle awash, Ethiopia. Middle awash is largest irrigated part of the country. It is well gifted with the land, sunshine and highly fortune in available water resources. Drip irrigation has greater water economy over other systems in arid and semi-arid regions characterized by high evaporation rates and it has the potential to increase yields of crops even with reduced irrigation water application. The performance of drip irrigation system was evaluated on the basis of parameters like emitter flow variation (q_var), distribution uniformity (DU), application uniformity (Ea), coefficient of variation (CV), statistical uniformity (SU) and Christiansen uniformity coefficient (UCC). High values of uniformity coefficient and uniformity of distribution are attributed to the effect land levelling. The hydraulic performance of drip irrigation result shows the emitter flow variation (0.07%), emission uniformity (92.2%), coefficient of variation (0.07%), Christiansen uniformity coefficient (90.8) and application efficiency of (85%).