Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur, India
Department of Civil Engineering
Irrigation Engineering (CEL-314)
Tutorial-01 Introduction and Crop Water Requirement,
Note: In the tutorial, RN indicates your Roll number (e.g. BT23CIV012, RN=12)
01 Answer the following:
(i) Explain the method of irrigation (Free, Border, Check, Basin flooding, also, Furrow, Sprinkler and
Drip irrigation methods) with a sketch. Also, give comments on application efficiency.
(ii) Explain: (a) Crop period and base period (b) Factors affecting duty of water (c) Method of improving
duty of water (d) Gross command area, culturable command area, intensity of irrigation, paleo
irrigation and crop ratio (e) Kor watering, kor depth and kor period (f) Capacity factor and time
factor
(iii) Explain in detail Irrigation Efficiencies
(iv) Defined field capacity, permanent wilting point, and optimal moisture content. Explain how these
will be useful in deciding the frequency of irrigation. (A schematic diagram showing less and more
frequent irrigation is to be drawn for clarity.)
02 Determine the time required to irrigate a strip of land of (RN*40) m2 area from a tube well with a discharge of
0.02 m3/sec. The average infiltration rate of the soil is calculated using the rainfall rate for the successive 30
minute period of a 3-hour storm, which are 1.6, 3.6, 5, 2.8, 2.2, and 1 cm/hr. The corresponding surface runoff
is estimated to be 3.6 cm. The average depth of flow on the field is 10 cm.
03 A loamy soil has a field capacity of 25% a permanent wilting point of 10% and the dry unit weight of soil is 1.5
gm/cc. If the depth of the root zone is (RN*0.001+0.75) m, determine the storage capacity of soil. Irrigation
water is applied when the moisture content drops to 14%. If the water application efficiency is 75%, what would
be the depth of water (cm) required at the field head?
04 A canal was designed to supply the irrigation needs of (1200 + RN) ha of land growing rice, having a base period
of 140 days and a delta of 134 cm. If the canal water is used to irrigate wheat having a base period of 120 days
and a delta of 52 cm, calculate how much area (in ha) can be irrigated by the same canal. Assume the capacity
of the canal for irrigation of rice is the same as for the wheat crop during the rabi period.
05 The base period, intensity of irrigation and duty of water for various crops under a canal system are given in
Table 1. Determine the reservoir capacity (in MCM) if the C.C.A is (40,000 + RN) ha, canal losses are 20% and
reservoir losses are 10%.
Table-1
Crop Base period (days) Duty of water at the field (ha/cumec) Intensity of irrigation (%)
Wheat 120 1800 40
Sugar Cane 360 1700 20
Cotton 180 1400 10
Rice 120 800 15
Vegetables 120 700 35
06 In a farmland (50+RN) ha an area is irrigated by a system of pumps from a well of maximum possible head
required to overcome, which is 18 m, also available head required at the outlet, which is 1.2 m and conveyed
through a canal to the farms. The efficiency of water conveyance is 85% and the pumps work at 12 hours/day.
Available moisture holding capacity is 16 cm per meter depth, and the average depth of the root zone is 1m. The
water application efficiency is 80%. Irrigation is started when the available moisture level reaches 50%. The
peak rate used by the plant is 8 mm/day. What would be the irrigation period in days and the total pumping
capacity required in hp?
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07 For use in Hargreaves method, in respect of Group-D wheat crop, the following K values are given in Table-2
Wheat is grown between 1st November and 15th March. The effective rainfall in the individual month is taken
as follows: Nov-0.5 cm; Dec-1.6 cm; Jan-3.2 cm; Feb-2.7 cm; March-nil. Percolation losses are nil throughout.
Field Irrigation Efficiency is 70% and Gross Irrigation Efficiency is 75%. The mean class A pan evaporation
throughout the respective months are: Nov-(13+0.1*RN) cm; Dec-(11+0.1*RN) cm; Jan-(9+0.1*RN) cm; Feb-
(15+0.1*RN) cm; March-(10+0.1*RN) cm. Compute the gross irrigation requirement for the whole crop period.
Table-2
% of crop growing season Value of K
0 0.08
5 0.08
10 0.15
15 0.19
20 0.27
25 0.33
30 0.40
35 0.46
40 0.52
45 0.58
50 0.65
55 0.71
60 0.77
65 0.82
70 0.88
75 0.90
80 0.90
85 0.80
90 0.70
95 0.60
100 0.60
08 Fix the canal capacity for the given cropping pattern in the command area with their FIR as shown in Table 3,
assuming the peak demand factor for average monthly releases is 1.25 times, and conveyance efficiency is 70%.
Table 3
Month Field irrigation requirement in cm (FIR)
Cropping Paddy Groundnut Maize Cotton Sugarcane Chillies
pattern (24000+RN) (6000+RN) (6000+RN) (12000+RN) (12000+RN) (3600+RN)
(Area in ha)
Jun 19.3 25.9
July 6 7.6
August 7.4 6.8
September 7.9 6 1.7
October 29.9 3.4 4 34.7 23.5
November 20.7 6.3 15.1 8 42.3 22.4
December 16.2 23.8 20.6 18 16.6
January 21.6 20.5 22.8 22 10.8
February 13.4 14.3 25
March 36.5
April 40.8
May 50
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