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Irrigation Engineering Principles

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 Module
3
Irrigation Engineering
Principles
Version 2 CE IIT, Kharagpur
 Lesson
3
Estimating Irrigation
Demand
Version 2 CE IIT, Kharagpur
Instructional objectives
On completion of this lesson, the student shall learn the following:

1. How much water is required for the proper growth of important crops
2. How to estimate the water demand of crops
3. What are the different seasons of crop growth
4. What are the usual cropping patterns
5. On what variables does the crop water requirement vary?

3.3.0 Introduction
A plot of land growing a certain crop or a combination of crops has to be supplied
with water from time to time. Primarily, the plot or field is expected to receive
water from rain falling on the land surface. But, as we know, the distribution of
rain is rather uncertain both in time and space. Also some of the rain as in a light
shower does not reach the ground as it may be intercepted by the leaves of the
plant during a heavy downpour; much of the water might flow away as surface
runoff. Hence, only a certain amount of falling rain may be effective in raising the
soil moisture that is actually useful for plant growth. Hence, for proper crop
growth, the effective rain has to be supplemented by artificially applying water to
the field by irrigation.

If the area of the field is small, water may be supplied from the local ground water
source. If the field is large, supplemented irrigation water may be obtained from a
local surface water source, like a river, if one is available nearby. The work of a
water resources engineer therefore would be to design a suitable source for
irrigation after knowing the demand of water from field data. In this lesson, we
proceed on to find out the methods by which estimation may be made for
irrigation water demand.

3.3.1 Crop water requirement

It is essential to know the water requirement of a crop which is the total quantity
of water required from its sowing time up to harvest. Naturally different crops may
have different water requirements at different places of the same country,
depending upon the climate, type of soil, method of cultivation, effective rain etc.

The total water required for crop growth is not uniformly distributed over its entire
life span which is also called crop period. Actually, the watering stops same time
before harvest and the time duration from the first irrigation during sowing up to
the last before harvest is called base period. Though crop period is slightly more
than the base period, they do not differ from practical purposes. Figure 1

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indicates the relative usage of water for a typical crop during its entire growth
period.

Sometimes, in the initial stages before the crop is sown, the land is very dry. In
such cases, the soil is moistened with water as t helps in sowing the crops. This
is known as paleo irrigation. A term kor watering is used to describe the watering
given to a crop when the plants are still young. It is usually the maximum single
watering required, and other waterings are done at usual intervals.

The total depth of water required to raise a crop over a unit area of land is usually
called delta. Some typical values of delta for common crops in some regions of
India are as follows:

Rice
• 1000mm to 1500mm for heavy soils or high water table
• 1500mm to 2000mm for medium soils
• 2000 to 2500 for light soils or deep water table
• 1600mm for upland conditions

Wheat
• 250mm to 400mm in northern India

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 • 500mm to 600mm in Central India
• Barley: 450mm

Maize
• 100mm during rainy season
• 500mm during winter season
• 900mm during summer season
• Cotton: 400 – 500mm

Sugarcane
• 1400mm to 1500mm in Bihar
• 1600mm to 1700mm in Andhra Pradesh
• 1700mm to 1800mm in Punjab
• 2200mm to 2400mm in Madhya Pradesh
• 2800mm to 3000mm in Maharashtra

This information has been gathered from the Handbook of Agriculture (fifth
edition, 2000) published by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.

3.3.2 Duty of water

The term duty means the area of land that can be irrigated with unit volume of
irrigation water. Quantitatively, duty is defined as the area of land expressed in
hectares that can be irrigated with unit discharge, that is, 1 cumec flowing
throughout the base period, expressed in days.

Imagine a field growing a single crop having a base period B days and a Delta ∆
mm which is being supplied by a source located at the head (uppermost point) of
the field, as shown in Figures 2 and 3.

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The water being supplied may be through the diversion of river water through a
canal, or it could be using ground water by pumping (Figure 4).

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If the water supplied is just enough to raise the crop within D hectares of the field,
then a relationship may be found out amongst all the variables as:

Volume of water supplied = B*60*60*24 m3

Area of crop irrigated = D*104 m2
86400 8.64 B
Volume of water supplied per unit area = =
10000 D D

Hence, knowing two of the three variables B, D and ∆ the third party may be
found out.

The duty of irrigation water depends upon a number of factors; some of the
important ones are as follows:

• Type of crop: As different crops require different amount of water for

maturity, duties are also required. The duty would vary inversely as the
water requirement of crop.

• Climate season and type of soil: Some water applied to the field is
expected to be lost through evaporation and deep percolation.

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 Evaporation loss has a direct bearing on the prevalent climate and
percolation may be during drier seasons when the water table is low and
soil is also dry. Percolation loss would be more for sandy soils than silty or
clayey soils.

• Efficiency of cultivation methods: If the tillage and methods of water

application are faulty and less efficient, then the amount of water actually
reaching the plant roots would be less. Hence, for proper crop growth
more water would be required than an equivalent efficient system. Also, if
the water is conveyed over long distances through field channels before
being finally applied to the field, then also the duty will rise due to the
losses taking place in the channels.

3.3.3 Crop growing seasons in India

Each crop has its own sowing and harvesting seasons and it is important to have
a knowledge of this which may help to decide the total water demand in a field
having mixed crops.

In India, the northern and north eastern regions have two distinct cropping
seasons. The first coinciding mostly with the South western monsoon is called
kharif , which spans mostly from July to October. The other, called rabi, spans
generally over October to March. The summer season crops are planted
sometime between April and June. In southern part of India, there is no such
distinct season, but each region has its own classification of seasons.

Generally, the kharif is characterized by a gradual fall in temperature, more

numerous cloudy days, low intensity, high relative humidity and cyclonic weather.
During Rabi, there is a gradual rise in temperature, bright sunshine, near
absence of cloud days, and a lower relative humidity.

The following table indicates some the regional cropping calendars in India.

State Season Local name Growing month

Andhra Pradesh Kharif Serva or Abi July – December
Rabi Dalwa or Tabi December – April
Summer In limited areas March/April –
June
Assam Pre-monsoon Ahu Mar/April–
June/july
- Sali June/July-
Nov/Dec
- Boro Nov - May
Bihar Summer - March – July/Aug
Autumn - May/June–
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 Sept/Oct
Winter - June – Nov/Dec
Gujarat Kharif Chomasu Dangar June/July-Oct/Nov
- Unala Dangar Dec – June
Haryana Kharif - May/June–
Sept/Oct
Himachal Pradesh Kharif - June/July-
Sept/Oct
Jammu & Kashmir - - Jammu: June-Nov
Kashmir: Last
week of April -
October
Karnataka Kharif - June – Dec
Summer - Jan-May/June
Kerala first crop Virippu April-May/Sept-
Oct
Second crop Mundakan Sept-Oct/Dec-Jan
Third crop Punja Dec/Jan-Mar/April
Madhya Pradesh Kharif - June/July-Dec
Maharashtra Kharif - June/July-Dec
Manipur Kharif - Mar/June-
Sept/Oct
Meghalaya Kharif - May/June-
Aug/Sept
Rabi - ----------------
Nagaland Kharif - May/June-
Nov/Dec
Rabi - Feb - May
Orissa - Sarad June-Dec
- Dalua Dec-April
- Beali April/May –Sept
(short Duration) (Only in uplands)
Punjab Kharif - May – Nov
Rajasthan Kharif - June/July-Sept/oct
Tamil Nadu - Navarai Jan-April
- Sornavari April – July
- Kar or Kuruvai June – August
- Samba June/July-
Nov/Dec
- Thaladi or Sept/Oct-
Pishanam Feb/March
Uttar Pradesh Kharif - June – Oct
West Bengal Pre-Kharif Aus April-Sept
Kharif Aman June-Dec
Summer Boro End Nov-Mid June

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3.3.4 Variations in the country’s irrigation demands
It may be appreciated that in India there is a large variation of rainfall, which is
the primary source of irrigation in most parts of the country. In fact, the crops
grown in various regions have been adapted according to the local rainfall
availability. Water resources engineers are therefore concerned with arranging
supplementary water to support the crops for seasonal variations of rainfall in
order to ensure an assured crop harvest.

Further, due to variation in the type of soil over different regions of the country,
the types of crop grown also varies- thus dictating the water requirement at
different regions during different times. Hence, the country has been broadly
classified into eight agro climatic zones, a list of which is given.

3.3.5 Cropping patterns

Planning of an irrigation project requires estimation of water demand of a
cultivated area. Naturally, this would depend upon the type of crop grown. Since
irrigation water may have to be supplied to one field growing a combination of
crops or to many fields growing different crops, it is important to understand
certain cropping practices which would be helpful in estimating the irrigation
demand. Some of the prevalent practices are as follows:
• Crops grown solely or mixed: Mixed cropping
• Crops grown in a definite sequence: Rotational cropping
• Land occupied by one crop during one season: Mono cropping
• Land occupied by two crops: double cropping
• Land sowed with more than one crop in a year: multiple cropping

3.3.6 Irrigation water need

For raising a field crop effectively, it is essential to supply water through artificial
irrigation supplementing the rain falling over the plot of land and raising the soil
moisture. Irrigation requirement for a typical crop and an assumed rainfall pattern
may be illustrated as in Figure 5.

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Hence, it may be seen that irrigation water requirement is rather a dynamic one.
Also, the crop water requirement is shown with slight variation, it actually shows
more variation, depending on the type of crop and the prevalent climate. Though
farmers may be tempted to allow more water to the plants through supplemental
irrigation, it must be remembered that there is an optimum water requirement
schedule of each crop depending upon its stage of growth. It has been proved
that at times application of more water may cause reduction in yield.

3.3.7 Variation of crop water requirement

The total water need for various plants, known as delta, has been discussed
earlier. However, in planning the supply of irrigation water to a field crop, it is
essential to estimate the water requirement of each plot of land growing a crop or
crops at any point of time. This may be done by studying the dynamic interaction
between a crop and the prevalent climate and the consequent water requirement.
The demand would, naturally be also dependant on the type of crop and its stage
of growth.

Plant roots extract water from the soil. Most of this water doesn’t remain in the
plant, but escapes to the atmosphere as vapour through the plants leaves and

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stems, a process which is called transpiration and occurs mostly during
daytime. The water on the soil surface as well as the water attaching to the
leaves and stem of a plant during a rainfall also is lost to the atmosphere by
evaporation. Hence, the water need of a crop consists of transpiration plus
evaporation, together called evapotranspiration.

The effect of the major climatic factors on crop water needs may be summarized
as follows:

• Sunshine
• Temperature
• Humidity
• Wind speed

The variation of evapotranspiration upon these factors is illustrated in Figure 6.

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Since the same crop grown in different climatic variations have different water
needs, it has been accepted to evaluate the evapotranspiration rate for a
standard or reference crop and find out that of all other crops in terms of this
reference. Grass has been chosen as standard reference for this purpose. The
evapotranspiration rate of this standard grass is, therefore, called the reference
crop evapotranspiration and is denoted as ETO, which is of course, the function
of the climatic variables. Training Manual 3: Irrigation Water Needs published by
the Food and Agricultural Organisation, (FAO) and available on-line through the
under-mentioned web-site gives an idea about the variation of ETO under
different climatic conditions and is reproduced in the table below.

http://www.fao.org/ag/agL/public.stm#iwmtm

Table showing the daily variation of water needs of standard grass (in mm) under
different climatic patterns (ETO)

Mean daily Temperature

Climatic Zone Low (<150C) Medium (150- High (>250C)
0
25 C)
Desert/Arid 4-6 7-8 9-10
Semi-arid 4-5 6-7 8-9
Sub-humid 3-4 5-6 7-8
humid 1-2 3-4 5-6

Other methods have been devised to calculate ETO for given values of climatic
parameters. These are discussed in the next section. In this section, we proceed
on to discuss, how to find crop water need, if ETO is known.

Agricultural scientists have evaluated a factor called crop factor and denoted it
by KC, to evaluate specific crop water needs. Naturally, Kc would be different for
different crops and would not be the same throughout the growth season of one
type of crop. Thus, the crop evapotranspiration, denoted by ETC is to be
evaluated as under:

ETO = KC * ETC (1)

Both ETO and ETC should be in the same units and generally, mm/day is used as
a standard all over the world.

In order to simply the calculations, the factor KC has been evaluated for 4 stages
of a crop growth usually denoted as

1. Initial stage
2. Crop development stage
3. Mid-season stage
4. Late season stage

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The FAO Training Manual 3 gives the growth stage periods and the
corresponding KC values for some typical crops. In the table below, that for rice is
presented.

Rice Climate
Little wind Strong wind
Growth stage Dry Humid Dry Humid
0-60 days 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1
Mid season 1.2 1.05 1.35 1.3
Last 30 days 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0
before harvest

It may be mentioned that any crop doesn’t have a fixed total growth period, which
is the summation of growth stage periods given above. There is usually a range,
depending upon the variety of the crop and the condition in which it is cultivated.

The values of KC also depend upon the climate and particularly on humidity and
wind speed, as shown for rice in the above table. In general, the values of KC
should be reduced by 0.05 if the relative humidity is high (>80%) and the wind
speed is low (<2m/s). Likewise, the values should be increased by 0.05 if the
relative humidity is low (<50%) and the wind speed is high (>5m/s).

For full details, the FAO training manual 3 may be consulted as KC values for
other crops are evaluated in different manners. For some of the crops, the
following table provides information:

Total
Crop Variety Crop growth stage growth
period
Short 20 days 25 days 60 days 15 days 120
duration days
Cabbage/Carrot Long 25 days 30 days 65 days 20 days 140
duration days
KC 0.45 0.75 1.05 0.9
Short 30 days 50 days 55 days 45 days 180
duration
Cotton/Fiax Long 30 days 50 days 65 days 50 days 195
duration
Kc 0.45 0.75 1.15 0.75
Short 20 days 30 days 60 days 40 days 150
duration
Lentil/Pulses Long 25 days 35 days 70 days 40 days 170
duration
KC 0.45 0.75 1.1 0.5
Short 20 25 25 10 80

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 duration
Maize Long 20 30 50 10 110
duration
KC 0.4 0.8 1.15 1.0
Short 15 25 70 40 150
duration
Onion (dry) Long 20 35 110 45 210
duration
KC 0.5 0.75 1.05 0.85
Short 25 30 30 20 105
duration
Potato Long 30 35 50 30 145
duration
KC 0.45 0.75 1.15 0.85

3.3.8 Estimation of reference crop ETO

Of the many methods available, the commonly used ones are two:

i. Experimental methods, using the experimentation data from

evaporation pan.
ii. Theoretical methods using empirical formulae, that take into account,
climatic parameters.

3.3.8.1 Experimental method

Estimation of ET0 can be made using the formula

ETO = Kpan x Epan (2)

Where ETO is the reference crop evapotranspiration in mm/day, Kpan is a

coefficient called pan coefficient and Epan is the evaporation in mm/day from
the pan.

The factor Kpan varies with the position of the equipment (say, whether placed in
a fallow area or a cropped area), humidity and wind speed. Generally, the details
are supplied by the manufacturers of the pan. For the US Class A evaporation
pan, which is also used in India, Kpan varies between 0.35 and 0.85, with an
average value of 0.7.

It may be noticed that finding out ETC would involve the following expression

ETC = Kcrop x ETO = Kc x Epan x Kpan (3)

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KC has been discussed in the previous section. If instead, Kcrop x Kpan is taken
as a single factor, say K, then ETC may directly be found from Epan as under:

ETC =K x Epan, where K may be called the crop factor

(4)

The water management division of the Department of Agriculture, Government of

India has published a list of factors for common crops and depending upon the
stage of growth, which have to be multiplied with the evaporation values of the
USWB Class A evaporation pan.

3.3.8.2 Theoretical methods

The important methods that have been proposed over the years take into
account, various climatic parameters. Of these, only the following would be
discussed, as they are the most commonly used.

3.3.8.2.1 Blanney-Criddle formula:

This formula gives an estimate of the mean monthly values of ETO, which is
stated as

ETO = p ( 0.46 Tmean + 8.13) (5)

Where p is the mean daily percentage of annual day time hours and has been
estimated according to latitude; Tmean is the mean monthly temperature in
degrees Centigrade and may be taken as ½ x (Tmax + Tmin) for a particular
month. Thus using the Equation (1), one may evaluate ETC for each month of the
growing season, from which the total water need for the full growing season of
the crop may be found out.

3.3.8.2.2 Penman-Monteith method:

This method suggests that the value of ETO may be evaluated by the following
formula:

0.408 Δ (R n − G ) + γ u 2 (e s - e a )
900
ETO = T + 273 (6)
Δ + γ (1 + 0.34u 2 )

Where the variables have the following meanings:

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ETo reference evapotranspiration [mm day-1],
Rn net radiation at the crop surface [MJ m-2 day-1],
G soil heat flux density [MJ m-2 day-1],
T mean daily air temperature at 2 m height [°C],
u2 wind speed at 2 m height [m s-1],
es saturation vapour pressure [kPa],
ea actual vapour pressure [kPa],
es - ea saturation vapour pressure deficit [kPa],
Δ slope vapour pressure curve [kPa °C-1],
g psychrometric constant [kPa °C-1].

3.3.9 Application interval of irrigation water

The water need of a crop is usually expressed as mm/day, mm/month or
mm/season, where season means the crop growing period. Whatever be the
water need, it need not be applied each day. A larger amount of water may be
applied once in a few days and it gets stored in the crop root zone, from where
the plant keeps on extracting water.

Soon after irrigation, when the soil is saturated, up to the field capacity, the
extraction of water from the soil by the plants is at the peak. This rate of water
withdrawal decreases as the soil moisture depletes (Figure 7).

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A stage is reached, in the moisture content of the soil, below which the plant is
stressed to extract and unless the soil moisture is increased by application of
water, the plant production would decrease. The difference of moisture content
between field capacity (the maximum content of available water) and the lowest
allowable moisture content is called the optimum soil water.

The optimum soil moisture range for some common crops is required from which
the interval period of irrigation water may be estimated as follows:

Net depth of soil depletion in the crop area just before irrigation (mm)
Irrigation period (days) =
ETc (mm/day)

……… (7)

Where the crop evapotranspiration rate (ETC) may be determined according to

the crop type, growth stage and prevailing climate as mentioned in the previous
sections.

The irrigation period, as calculated above, has not taken the soil retention
characteristics. Naturally, a soil with greater water retentive capacity serves as a
bigger water reservoir for crops and supply of irrigation can be delayed.
Consequently, frequency of irrigation is lower and interval of irrigation is longer in

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heavier soils and in soils with good organic content and low content of soluble
salts.

Further, the calculation of ETC as presented earlier and employed in the equation
above to calculate irrigation period, what is called, the potential
evapotranspiration (PET). This is the highest rate of water with drawl by an
actively growing crop with abundant water supply. However as the soil moisture
depletes, the actual evapotranspiration (AET) also decreases, as evident from
the decrease in the gradient of the soil moisture curve with time in Figure 7. The
AET would also be different from the PET if the climatic conditions like humidity
temperature etc vary from the ones assumed when calculating PET.
Nevertheless since PET is easier to estimate and since it would also be higher
than AET, it is rational to consider PET, while designing the water requirement
for a field of crop.

3.3.10 Total water requirement in growing a crop

The water that is required to irrigate a field or plot of land growing the particular
crop not only has to satisfy the evapotranspiration needs for growing the crop,
but would also include the following:

• Losses in the form of deep percolation while conveying water from the
inlet of the field upto its last or tail end as the water gets distributed within
the field

• Water requirement for special operations like land preparation,

transplanting, leaching of salts, etc.

Further, the evapotranspiration requirement of crops (ET) really doesn’t include

the water required by crops for building up plant tissues, which is rather
negligible compared to the evaporation needs. Hence ETC is often equivalently
taken as the consumptive irrigation requirement (CIR).

The net irrigation requirement (NIR) is defined as the amount of irrigation water
required to be delivered in the field to meet the consumptive requirement of crop
as well as other needs such as leaching, pre-sowing and nursery water
requirement (if any). Thus,

NIR = CIR + LR + PSR + NWR (8)

Where
LR = Leaching requirement
PSR = Pre-sowing requirement
NWR = Nursery water requirement

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Field Irrigation Requirement (FIR) is defined as the amount of water required to
meet the net irrigation requirements plus the amount of water lost as surface
runoff and through deep percolation. Considering a factor ηa called the water
application efficiency or the field application efficiency which accounts for the loss
of irrigation water during its application over the field, we have

NIR
FIR = (9)
η a

Now, consider an irrigated area where there is a single source of water (say, a
ground water pump) is supplying water to a number of fields and water is applied
to each field by rotation (Figure 8). Naturally, some water is lost through the
respective turnouts. Hence, the source must supply a larger amount of water
than that required at any point of time by adding up the flows to the fields
turnouts that are open at that point of time. Thus, the capacity of the water supply
source may be termed as the gross irrigation requirement (GIR), defined as:

FIR
GIR = (10)
η C

In the above equation, ηc is the water conveyance efficiency.

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Figure 9 shows the factors that decide the overall irrigation efficiency.

3.3.11 Important terms related to crop water requirements

and irrigation
Paleo irrigation
Sometimes, in the initial stages before the crop is sown, the land is very dry. This
happens usually at the time of sowing Rabi crops because of hot September,
when the soil may be too dry to be sown easily. In such a case, the soil is first
moistured with water to help to sowing of seeds, and the water application for this
purpose is known as Paleo Irrigation.

Kor watering
The total quality of water required by a crop is applied through a number of
waterings at certain intervals throughout the base period of the crop. However,
the quantity of water required to be applied during each of these waterings is not
the same. In general, for all crops during the first watering after the plants have
grown a few centimeters high, the quantity of water required is more than that
during subsequent waterings. The first watering after the plants have grown a
few centimeters high is known as Kor watering and the depth of water applied
during watering is known as Kor depth. The watering must be done in a limited
period which is known as the Kor period.

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 Outlet factor
The duty of water at the outlet that is at the turnout leading from the water
courses and field channels on the field is known as the outlet factor.

Overlap allowance
It might happen that the crop of one season may sometimes overlap the next
crop season for some period. During such a period of overlapping, irrigation
water is required to be supplied simultaneously to the crops of both the seasons.
Thus there is extra demand of water during this period and thus the water supply
must be increased by some amount. The extra discharge that has to be supplied
for this purpose is known as Overlap allowance.

The Evaporation Pan

A shallow edged container used to hold water during observations for the
determination of the quantity of evaporation at a given location. The U.S.
Weather Bureau Class A pan is 4 feet in diameter, 10 inches deep, set up on a
timber grillage so that the top rim is about 16 inches from the ground. The water
level in the pan during the course of observation is maintained between 2 and 3
inches below the rim.

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