Global Advanced Research Journal of Physical and Applied Sciences (GARJPAS)

September 2015 Vol. 4(1), pp. 057-063
Copyright © 2015 Global Advanced Research Journals

Original Research Paper

Evaluation of Water Management in Irrigated Sugarcane Production: Case Study of Wondogenet, Snnpr, Ethiopia.

Yewendwosen Mamo¹ and Zinabu Wolde²

¹Graduate student of Hawassa University, Department of Irrigation and water resource Engineering, P.O.Box05

² Ethiopian Sugar Corporation Research and Training, Wonji Ethiopia. P.O.Box 15

Corresponding author Email: sos.zine04@gmail.com

Accepted 10 September, 2015

Abstract

The study was initiated to evaluate how the irrigation water is being managed starting from the point of diversion of water from the source till field application. Internal indicators such as conveyance efficiency, water application efficiency, water storage and distribution efficiency and others related parameters were considered. Measurement of inflow and out flow water, determination of soil moisture before and after irrigation, field observation and collection of secondary data was done. The evaluation result showed that the conveyance efficiency in 5km long canal was 64.25% while Field application efficiency of the fields was very low 52.85%. The irrigation scheduling was irregular that it was in about 30-35 days whereas the normal should be in 20 days interval. The water storage efficiency of the soil was good (94.96%). The deep percolation fraction was high, and reaches up to 47%.This show that high amount of water is lost through deep percolation during field application and water conveyance. High deep percolation and poor water management practices such as irregular irrigation schedule, over application, etc were then observed to be contributing factors to low water use efficiency.

Keywords: application efficiency, Conveyance efficiency, Sugarcane, Irrigation.