Seasonal irrigation management strategies with farmer observation-control criteria for level basins

A process for generating seasonal irrigation management strategies has been developed. These seasonal irrigation management strategies provide farmers with a tool for improving system performance. This process considers the following factors: topography and soil depth suitability when level basins are introduced in a new area; the selection of seasonal target application depths; the selection of appropriate design input values for the completion-of-advance and partial completion-of-advance design criteria; the selection of the basin length for seasonal management; and the irrigation objectives of the individual farmer.;An approach for computing the basin length is presented. The application of the full and partial completion-of-advance criteria involved within a particular management strategy leads to acceptable seasonal performance when this basin length is used.;Three robust and effective seasonal management strategies were generated for different levels of irrigation management by applying the development process. Computer evaluation of the application of these three seasonal irrigation management strategies was carried out. This evaluation indicated that the methodology for defining the seasonal management strategies led to acceptable levels of seasonal performance.;A case study involving hypothetical crop and field conditions is presented. A soil water balance procedure is used to compute the required irrigations during a cropping season for the case study. BASIN, a level basin design computer program, was used for designing the first and one of the full root development period irrigations. A sensitivity analysis of each of the irrigation criteria obtained from the designs was carried out. SRFR, a surface irrigation simulation model, was used for accomplishing the sensitivity analysis. Findings of this analysis were used to identify the design guidelines that should be used with the irrigation criteria for accomplishing acceptable system performance for individual irrigations. Field infiltration data from successive irrigations were used to evaluate design guidelines for selecting the intake function parameters. The results show that acceptable levels of system performance are achieved when the guidelines are followed.