ON-FARM PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT OF IRRIGATION WATER MANAGEMENT IN THE NILE DELTA OF EGYPT

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, Egypt

2 Irrigation and Hydraulics Dept., Faculty of Eng. , Cairo University, Egypt

Abstract

As the agricultural sector is the largest consumer of water in Egypt.  Achieving efficient irrigation and drainage systems is becoming essential to meet future demands. This papers highlights the importance of improving the on- farm irrigation water management in old lands of the Nile Delta of Egypt in order to achieve saving of water.  A study area namely Bahr Nemra command area (4079ha) was selected to assess the performance of irrigation water management at the on-farm field level for the year 2008-2009.  A set of fields were assessed in this study by selecting three fields irrigating directly from the branch canal and representing the head, middle and tail in addition to three fields along a mesqa feeding from the head of the branch canal and three fields along a mesqa feeding from the end of the selected branch canal.  All the selected fields were cultivating rice for the summer season and wheat for the winter season to enable comparison.  The on-farm application efficiency was calculated, it varied from 46% to 85% for rice fields and from 54% to 94% for wheat fields.  Also, the adequacy was assessed through comparing the amount of the irrigation water applied by farmer per unit area with the irrigation water requirements for each field.  The results indicated that farmers tend to over-irrigate their lands.  Moreover, the values of land productivity varied from 7.14 to 9.22 ton/ha for rice fields and from 4.8 to 8 ton/ha for wheat fields.

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