OVERALL WATER LOSSES DURING SPRINKLER IRRIGATION IN ARID AREA:CASE OF TOUGGOURT - ALGERIA

Abstract

In recent years, the development of agriculture in Algeria Southeast grew rapidly, which increased demand for agricultural products. Since this region has difficult agro-climatic conditions, irrigation seems to be a necessary factor to ensure optimal development and higher agricultural production. Like many irrigation techniques that are widely used, the performance of sprinkler irrigation is significantly affected by these conditions (mainly evaporation) which cause colossal water losses. The purpose of this study is to evaluate, through the experimental approach, the global losses of water caused by evaporation and wind drift on two irrigated surfaces in the arid zone of Touggourt. Here we propose adequate predictive equations and explore the effect of irrigated area on overall water loss values. These are measured on two blocks (A and B) the rain gauge method. Block A contains four lateral lines while Block B has only two. For both, each lateral line has four sprinklers. The results showed that the overall water losses of block A are about 24.13 to 50.46%, while those of Block B range from 29.52 to 49.5 %.Two obtained models are adopted for both blocks which can be useful tools for determining overall water losses in environmental conditions (air temperature, relative humidity and wind speed).Noting that when the irrigated area was larger, the water losses will be lass.

Keywords

• sprinkler irrigation
• evaporation
• wind drift
• environmental condition