Search

Irrigation scheduling techniques is one of the suggested solutions for water scarcity problem. The study aims to show the possibility of using practical and applicable irrigation scheduling program which was designed by Water Resources Department at the University of Baghdad by using Spreadsheet Formulas for Microsoft Excel program, version 2007, with some modification to generalize it and made it applicable to various climatic zone and different soil types, as a salvation for the shortage of irrigation water inside the irrigation projects. Irrigation projects which incidence of Tigris River basin will be taken as an applicable example. This program was based on water budgeting and programmed depending on scientific concepts which facilitate irrigation structures operation and ease the use by farmers. By using the abilities of this program, the monthly and annually water requirements and drainage water were estimated. Finally a comparison is made between the calculated discharges with the designers suggested ones. This comparisons showed that the use of this type of irrigation scheduling (i.e. predicted irrigation scheduling) with itsapplicable constrains require high attention when choosing the cropping pattern for each climate zone. Also it found that this irrigation program is a useful tool for saving water if cropping pattern has been chosen carefully.

The estimation of recharge to ground water is the important basics to improve the use of ground water with other available resources, and to save ground water resource from depletion, especially when using large quantity of ground water during a long time such as for agricultural purposes. Al-Wand River Basin in Iraq suffers from water shortage of its requirement of Blajo–Al-Wand Project, and to cover this shortage, the ground water plays a good role to overcome this problem. In this study, three methods were used to estimate the recharge and ground water storage for Al-Wand Basin, these methods are: Water Table Fluctuation (WTF), Water Balance of Climatic for Basin, and Water Table Balance for Basin. The results showed differences between the methods used to estimate recharging and ground storage for this basin. The approximated values between drawl water from production wells and water balance of climate for basin method make it better the other methods, which the difference percentage was large with drawls water. Also, classifying the methods by assumptions found make (WTF) better method, because it contains less assumptions compared to the other methods.

Iraq depends mainly on Tigris and Euphrates Rivers to provide high percentage of agricultural water use for thousands years. At last years, Iraq is suffering from shortage in water resources due to global climate changes and unfair water politics of the neighboring countries, which affected the future of agriculture plans for irrigation, added to that the lack of developed systems of water management in the irrigation projects and improper allocation of irrigation water, which reduces water use efficiency and lead to losing irrigation water and decreasing in agricultural yield. This study aims at studying the usability of irrigation and leaching scheduling within the irrigating projects and putting a complete annual or seasonal irrigation program as a solution for the scarcity of irrigation water, the increase of irrigation efficiency, lessening the salinity in the projects and preparing an integral irrigation calendar through field measurements of soil physical properties and chemical for project selected and compared to the results of the irrigation scheduling and leaching with what is proposed by the designers. The process is accomplished by using a computer program which was designed by Water Resources Department at the University of Baghdad, with some modification to generalize it and made it applicable to various climatic zone and different soil types. Study area represented by large project located at the Tigris River, and this project was (Al-Amara) irrigation project. Sufficient samples of project's soil were collected so as to identify soil physical and chemical properties and the salinity of soil and water as well as identifying the agrarian cycles virtually applied to this project. Finally, a comparison was conducted between the calculated water quantities and the suggested ones by the designers. The research results showed that using this kind of scheduling (previously prepared irrigation and leaching scheduling) with its properties which made it applicable requires an intense care when using the plant distribution pattern, the agrarian cycle, its agrarian areas and agricultural intensity within all climatic regions. Also, it was found that this program was an instrumental tool for providing water if the plant distribution pattern was well-selected.

The role of drain in agricultural lands is to remove excess surface and subsurface water to create a good environment for root growth and to increase crops yield. The main objective of this research was to evaluate the performance of closed drains when using textile filter instead of crushed gravel filter. The research has been executed in the laboratory using a sand tank model and by using two types of the soil. One of soils was light soil (sandy soil) and the other heavy soil (loamy soil). The tests were classified into four cases; each case was supplied discharge during 10 days. The results showed that the amount of out flow when using graded crushed gravel filter is greater than the amount of out flow in case of using textile filter for the same soil; and the amount of sediment in applying graded crushed gravel filter for the two types of soils was greater than using textile filter. The entrance resistance for textile filter was greater than graded crushed gravel filter and the entrance resistance increase for the two types of filters with time. From the results it can be concluded that the graded crushed gravel is more efficient than the textile filter in sandy soil, while when using the two types of filters with loamy soil the results showed that the two types of filter exhibited low work efficiency.

The estimation of recharge to ground water is the important basics to improve the use of ground water with other available resources, and to save ground water resource from depletion, especially when using large quantity of ground water during a long time such as for agricultural purposes. Al-Wand River Basin in Iraq suffers from water shortage of its requirement of Blajo–Al-Wand Project, and to cover this shortage, the ground water plays a good role to overcome this problem. In this study, three methods were used to estimate the recharge and ground water storage for Al-Wand Basin, these methods are: Water Table Fluctuation (WTF), Water Balance of Climatic for Basin, and Water Table Balance for Basin. The results showed differences between the methods used to estimate recharging and ground storage for this basin. The approximated values between drawl water from production wells and water balance of climate for basin method make it better the other methods, which the difference percentage was large with drawls water. Also, classifying the methods by assumptions found make (WTF) better method, because it contains less assumptions compared to the other methods.