Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction To Irrigation Design
Introduction To Irrigation Design
Introduction To Irrigation Design
Water Conservation
Potable to effluent
Irrigation scheduling
Site Plan
A site plan is a scaled drawing of the areas that
are impacted by the irrigation system.
Before going through the effort of creating a site
plan yourself, check to see if a plan already
exists.
If the site being designed falls within city
boundary, there may be a site plan or survey on
record at the city or county planning/zoning
department.
Site plan
Locate all buildings, walkways, driveways,
parking areas, light or utility poles, retaining
walls
Indicate where there are slopes and in which
direction and how steeply the ground slopes.
Locate all trees and shrub areas and pinpoint
the plant material on the drawing.
soil type
Location of any new planting areas and the
types of vegetation that these areas will contain.
Soil moisture
Hygroscopic water is moisture that is
held too tightly in the soil to be used by
plants.
Capillary water is moisture that is held in
the pore spaces of the soil and can be
used by plants.
Gravitational water drains rapidly from
the soil and is not readily available to be
used by plants.
Soil moisture
The permanent wilting point represents the
boundary between capillary water and hygroscopic
water.
Because hygroscopic water is not usable by plants,
continuous soil moisture levels below the
permanent wilting point will result in the damage or
death of the plants.
Field capacity represents the boundary between
gravitational water and capillary water. It is the
upper limit for soil moisture that is usable by plants.
Available Water
Soil Texture
Range
Average
in./in.
in./in.
0.04-0.08
0.06
0.06-0.10
0.08
0.10-0.15
0.13
0.13-0.19
0.16
0.15-0.21
0.18
0.13-0.21
0.17
Source: NRCS
Water needs
Soil AW (inches/foot or inches/inch) = Field
Capacity (FC) Wilting Point (WP)
For specific plant AW (in) = (soil AW) X
Rooting Depth
Readily available water = plant AW X Allowable
Depletion (use 50 % if not provided)
Irrigation interval = AW X AD/ usage per day
Efficiency = net water to root zone/gross water
applied to system
Reference Evapotranspiration
ETo or potential evapotanspiration represents a
well watered, fully developed plant such as
grass
Reference evapotranspiration is multiplied by a
crop coefficient to obtain the ET rate for a
specific crop
The crop coefficient varies throughout the
growing season
For Example Corn at 20% = 0.67 at 50%=1
Estimates of ET
http://www.soils.wisc.edu/wimnext/et/miet.html
Precipitation Rates
P = q/A
Units MUST be consistent. For:
P = precipitation rate (in/hr)
q = flow onto area (gal/min)
A = area (ft)
P = 96.3 q/A
Sprinkler Irrigation
Uniform application by overlapping
non-uniform wetting paterns
Sprinkler spray heads no moving
parts - small area pop up
Microsprays overhead small area
Rotary Sprinklers Impact or gear
driven
Technical Information
Nozzle - removable
controls velocity and flow
Operating Pressure inc
pressure inc water flow
and change wetting
pattern
Radius of Throw
furthest point
Water Distribution
Patterns
Trajectory angle
Spray Heads
Technical Information operating
pressure, flow, radius of throw, and
nozzle options
Fixed head
Rotary Motor-driven
Rotary Impact
Bubbles