Technical and Economic Evaluation of Low Pressure Irrigation Pipe and Comparison with Traditional and Sprinkler Irrigation Systems

The scarcity of irrigation water and decrease of water resources are the most important limiting factors in crop production in countries such as Iran. Thus, studying the optimum use of water and increasing water use efficiency are essential to the agricultural sector. The use of a low pressure hydroflume has been suggested to replace traditional surface irrigation methods. The aim of this research was to compare water distribution in the hydroflume with traditional and sprinkler irrigation systems. Farms in the Kabodarahang plain were selected for the evaluation of water consumption, yield, irrigation efficiency and water productivity. The results showed that most water loss in the farms irrigated by hydroflume was deep percolation and, in the farms irrigated by traditional furrow irrigation, was runoff and deep percolation. The amount of runoff loss in the traditional and hydroflume methods were 25.8% and 15%, respectively. In the hydroflume method, the average of potential efficiency of low quarter was 50, application efficiency of low quarter was 48.2, distribution uniformity was 79.2, and uniformity of the Christiansen coefficient was 77. These parameters for the traditional method were 44.8, 34.9, 87.65, and 89.1, respectively. For the sprinkler method, they were 57.6, 56, 70.3 and 76.6, respectively. The water productivity for the traditional, hydroflume and sprinkler irrigation systems were 1.2, 2.4 and 3.2 kg/m3, respectively. The venue of hydroflume irrigation relative to traditional irrigation increased by 39376600 rails/ha. The ratio of benefit per cost in hydroflume irrigation systems was 6.