Analysis of trickle irrigation with application to design problems

Summary Designing trickle irrigation systems involves the selection of a proper combination of trickle discharge rate, spacing between emitters, diameter and length of the lateral system for any given set of soil, crop and climatic conditions. Trickle irrigation is treated as transient and steady axisymmetric infiltration processes. An existing numerical solution to nonsteady state infiltration is used to quantify the effect of soil hydraulic properties and trickle discharge rates on emitter spacing (Fig. 2). The results of the analysis suggest the possibility of controlling the wetted volume of a soil by regulating the emitter discharge according to soil properties (Figs. 3 and 4). The surface distribution of a transformed soil water content (or pressure) function (Fig. 5) is derived from a linearized solution to steady infiltration. The analysis of steady and non-steady infiltration is employed to estimate the spacing between emitters as a function of discharge and water pressure conditions between emitters using hydraulic soil data (Fig. 6). Hydraulic conductivity parameters are given for 17 different soils (Table 1) to be used for design purposes. Theoretical analysis of soil water is combined with hydraulic principles to derive lateral diameter and length for engineering design requirements.Contribution from the Agricultural Research Organization, The Volcani Center, Bet Dagan, Israel. 1977 Series, No. 134-E