WOLLEGA UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF PlSc
PRINCIPLES AN PRACTICE OF
IRRIGATION
December, 2015
Irrigation engineering by Abdulaziz H.
CHAPTER FOUR
4. Crop And Irrigation Water Requirements
4.1 Crop water requirement
It refers to the total quantity and the way in which a crop
requires water, from the time it is sown to the time it is harvested.
Water requirement of crops comprises:
The water lost as evaporation from the crop field,
Water transpired and metabolically used by the crop
Water lost during application (unavoidable losses) &
Water used for special operations such as land preparation,
transplanting, salt reaching and so on.
The water requirement is usually expressed as the surface depth
of water in millimeters or centimeters.
► Every crop requires a certain quantity of water
after a certain fixed interval, throughout its period
of growth.
► If the natural rain is sufficient and timely so as to
satisfy both these requirements, no irrigation
water is required for raising that crop.
► Certain crop may require irrigation in certain part of
the country & the same crop may not require any
irrigation in some part of the country.
► The area where irrigation is a must for agriculture
is called the arid region, while the area in which
inferior crops can be grown without irrigation is
called semi arid region.
Different crops have different water requirements and the same crop
may have different water requirements at different places of the same
country, depending up on the climate, type of soil, method of
cultivation & rainfall etc.
Water requirement may be formulated mathematically as,
WR E T IP Wm Wu Ws
WR ET Wm Wu Ws
WR Cu Wu Ws
► The water requirement described above is therefore,
considered as water demand.
► The water required by crops is essentially met
from water sources.
► The major sources are rainfall (precipitation)
irrigation water, soil water and ground water.
► This water requirement is considered as water
supply.
► Considering the different sources of water or
contribution each. The water requirement of
crops (WR) may be expressed as,
Evaporation (E):-Evaporation is the process during
which a liquid changes in to gas.
The process of evaporation of water in nature is one of
the fundamental components of the hydrological cycle by
which water changes to vapor through the absorption of
heat energy.
Transpiration(T):-Transpiration is the process by which
water vapor leaves the living plant body and enters the
atmosphere.
Evapotranspiration(ET):-The term, evapotranspiration
denotes the water transpired by crop plants and the water
evaporated from the soil or water surface in the crop field
and the intercepted precipitation by crop aerial parts in
any specified period.
Consumptive Use (CU):-
► The term, consumptive use of water by crop
refers to the evapotranspiration together with
water used for metabolic activities by the crop
plants.
► It is the total amount of water used by the
plant in transpiration, building of plant tissues
etc and evaporation from adjacent soils or
from plant leaves, in any specified time.
4.2 Concepts of Evapotranspiration
Actual Crop Evapotranspiration: The actual crop
evapotranspiration refers to the rate of evapotranspiration by a
particular crop in a given period under prevailing soil water and
atmospheric conditions.
It involves the use of crop factor called crop coefficient while
computing it from reference crop (ETo) estimated by different
empirical formulae or evaporation rates from evaporimeters.
Reference Crop Evapotranspiration(ETo) :- The
reference crop evapotranspiration ETo (sometimes called
potential evapotranspiration, PET) is defined as the rate of
evapotranspiration from a large area covered by green grass
which grows actively, completely shades the ground and
which is not shortage of water.
Climatic Factors Affecting ETo
ETo
Cool Hot
Humid Dry
Cloudyor no wind Sunny
Little Windy
4.3 Methods of Estimating Evapotranspiration
Various methods are employed to measure and estimate the crop ET
or CU. The methods may be grouped in to.
Direct Methods
Pan Evaporimeter Method
Empirical Methods
Pan Evaporation method: With this method, ETo can be obtained
by using evaporation rates which are directly measured with an
evaporation pan.
This is a shallow pan, containing water which is exposed to the
evaporative influence of the climate.
The standard pan is the of the US Weather Bureau.
It has a diameter of 120.7 cm, a depth Class A Pan of 25 cm and is
placed 15 cm above the ground.
Pan Evaporation Method
The principle of obtaining evaporation rates from the pan is as follows:
The pan is installed in the field 15 cm above the ground;
The pan is filled with water 5 cm below the rim;
The water is allowed to evaporate during a certain period of time (usually 24
hours).
After 24 hours, the water depth is measured again;
The amount of water which has evaporated in a given time unit is equal to the
difference between the two measured water depths. This is the pan evaporation
rate: Epan (mm/24 hours).
The readings taken from the pan (Epan) however do not give ETo directly, but
have to be multiplied by a "Pan Coefficient" (Kpan). thus: ETo = Epan x Kpan.
For the Class A evaporation pan, Kpan varies between 0.35 and
0.85, with an average of 0.70. If the precise pan factor is not
known, the average value (0.70) can be used as an approximation.
Examples
Given
Type of pan: Class A
Water depth in pan on day 1 = 150 mm
Water depth in pan on day 2 = 144 mm
Rainfall= 0 mm
Kpan= 0.75
ETo = Kpan x Epan
Epan = 150 mm – 144 mm = 6 mm/day
ETo = 0.75 x 6 mm/day = 4.5 mm/day
Example 2
Same as above example except: Rainfall = 7 mm
Water depth in pan on day 2 = 147 mm
Epan = 150 mm – 147 mm + 7 mm=10 mm/day
ETo = 0.75 x 10 mm/day = 7.5 mm/day
The Blaney-Criddle Method
If no measured data on pan evaporation are
available, the Blaney-Criddle method can be used to
calculate ETo.
This method is straightforward and requires only
data on mean daily temperatures.
However, with this method, only approximations of
ETO are obtained which can be inaccurate in extreme
conditions.
The Blaney-Criddle formula is:
ETo = p(0.46Tmean + 8)
Where: ETo= reference crop evapotranspiration
(mm/day) Tmean = mean daily temperature (° C)
p = mean daily percentage of annual daytime
hours.
The Blaney-Criddle Method always refers to
mean monthly values, both for the temperature
and the ETo.
If in a local meteorological station the daily
minimum and maximum temperatures are
measured, the mean daily temperature is
calculated as follows:
Determination of effective rainfall (Pe)
As explained earlier, only the rain water retained
in the root zone can be used by the plants and
represents what is called the effective rainfall.
The effective rainfall is, therefore, the difference
between the total rainfall and the losses (Runoff,
evaporation and deep percolation).
There are various approaches that can be used to
estimate the effective rainfall from the total monthly
rainfall.
However, the following formula was developed by
FAO based on analysis carried out for different arid and
sub-humid climates and is more suitable for Ethiopia.
Pe = 0.6 Pdep - 10 for Pdep < 70 mm.
Pe = 0.8 Pdep - 24 for Pdep > 70 mm.
Where: Pe= Monthly effective rainfall (mm) Pdep= Monthly
dependable rainfall (mm)
Dependable rainfall is defined as a rainfall with a
probability of exceedance (P) of 80%.
4.4 Irrigation Water Requirements
Irrigation requirements (IR) refer to the water that must be
supplied through the irrigation system to ensure that the crop
receives its full crop water requirements.
If irrigation is the only source of water supply for the plant, the
irrigation requirement will always be greater than the crop water
requirement to allow for inefficiencies in the irrigation system.
If the crop receives some of its water from other sources (rainfall,
water stored in the ground, underground seepage, etc.), then the
irrigation requirement can be considerably less than the crop
water requirements.
Irrigation water Requirement is the function of weather, crop,
soil, rainfall, irrigation method and depth to water-table. Irrigation
water requirement can be classified as:
Net Irrigation Water Requirement:- The amount
of irrigation water required to bring the soil moisture
level in the effective root zone to field capacity.
It does not include losses that are occurring in the
process of applying the water.
The net irrigation water requirement during the
growing period (IRn) is the difference between
ETcrop and Pe.
NIR = Etc – Pe
Where, IRn is Net Irrigation Requirement, ETc= crop
water requirement and Pe= effective rain fall.
Gross Irrigation Water Requirement: It is the
net irrigation water requirement plus losses in
water application and other losses.
The is the total amount of water required to be
released/diverted from the source and found as:
GIR = IRn /Ea.
