Evolution of the practice

Although surface irrigation is thousands of years old, the most significant advances have been made within the last decade. In the developed and industrialized countries, land holdings have become as much as 10-20 times as large, and the number of farm families has dropped sharply. Very large mechanized farming equipment has replaced animal-powered planting, cultivating and harvesting operations. The precision of preparing the field for planting has improved by an order of magnitude with the advent of the laser-controlled land grading equipment. Similarly, the irrigation works themselves are better constructed because of the application of high technology equipment.

The changes in the lesser-developed and developing countries are less dramatic. In the lesser-developed countries, trends toward land consolidation, mechanization, and more elaborate system design and operation are much less apparent. Most of these farmers own and operate farms of 1-10 hectares, irrigate with 20-40 litres per second and rely on either small mechanized equipment or animal-powered farming implements.

Probably the most interesting evolution in surface irrigation so far as this guide is concerned is the development and application of microcomputers and programmable calculators to the design and operation of surface irrigation systems. In the late 1970s, a high-speed microcomputer technology began to emerge that could solve the basic equations describing the overland flow of water quickly and inexpensively. At about the same time, researchers like Strelkoff and Katapodes (1977) made major contributions with efficient and accurate numerical solutions to these equations. Today in the graduate and undergraduate study of surface irrigation engineering, microcomputer and programmable calculator utilization is, or should be, common practice.

Microcomputers and programmable calculators provide several features for today's irrigation engineers and technicians. They allow a much more comprehensive treatment of the vital hydraulic processes occurring both on the surface and beneath it. One can find optimal designs and management practices for a multitude of conditions because designs historically requiring days of effort are now made in seconds. The effectiveness of existing practices or proposed ones can be predicted, even to the extent that control systems operating, sensing and adjusting on a real-time basis are possible.