Name of the Course:

IRRIGATION AND DRAINAGE ENGINEERING

AE 655

FM: 100; Final:80; Internal Assessment: 20

Course Objective:
To orient and familiarize the students in theory,
technological development and current
practices in problems solving in the area of
irrigation and drainage engineering that covers
on-farm and off-farm irrigation and drainage
system.

Chapters
1. Introduction [2 hours]
2. Soil-Water-Plant relationships to irrigation [5 hours]
3. Farm Irrigation Practices [5 hours]
4. Farm Irrigation Scheduling [3 hours]
5. Water Conveyance and Distribution System [3 hours]
6. Design of Open Channels for irrigation [5 hours]
7. Irrigation Efficiencies [2 hours]
8. Measurement of Irrigation Water [3 hours]
9. Irrigation Policy [1 hours]
10. Drainage Theory and Methods of Agricultural Drainage [3 hours]
11. Design of Agricultural Drainage System [4 hours]
12. Irrigation Water Quality [1 hours]
13. Planning and Management of Irrigation Systems [3 hours]
14. Control and regulatory Structures [4 hours]

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 Chapter 1

Introduction

What is irrigation?
• Irrigation is defined as the science of artificial application of
water to the land, in accordance with the ‘crop water
requirements’ throughout the ‘crop period’ for full-fledged
nourishment of the crops (Garg, 1996).
• Irrigation is the artificial application of water to the soil for
the purpose of crop production.
• It is the science of planning and designing and efficient,
low-cost, economic irrigation system tailored to fit natural
conditions.
• Its is the engineering of controlling and harnessing the
various natural resources of water, by the construction of
dams, reservoirs, storage tanks, canals and headworks and
finally distributing the water to the agricultural fields.

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 Objectives of Irrigation
• To supply essential moisture for plant
growth
• Transportation of fertilizers (Fertigation)
• To save the crop from drying during short
duration draughts.
• To wash out or to dilute the salts if
present in the soil (leaching).
• To help in field preparation, dust control
etc.
• To soften the soil pan.
• Other benefits of irrigation include cooling
of the soil and atmosphere to create more
favourable environment for crop growth
and frost control.

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Scope and importance of Irrigation
• Studies carried out across different countries
have confirmed that irrigation plays a paramount
role in increasing the use of yield increasing
inputs and enhancing cropping intensity as well
as productivity of crops.
• Apart from benefiting the farmers, irrigation
development also helps to increase the
employment opportunities and wage rate of the
agricultural landless labourers, both of which are
essential to reduce the poverty among the
landless labour households.

• Water is becoming increasingly scarce worldwide due

to various reasons. (Need of water management)
• With the fast decline of irrigation water potential and
continued expansion of population and economic
activity in most of the countries located in arid and
semi-arid regions, the problems of water scarcity is
expected to be aggravated further.
• Macro-level estimate carried out by the International
Water Management Institute (IWMI), Colombo,
indicates that one-third of the world population would
face absolute water scarcity by the year 2025 (Seckler,
et al., 1998; Seckler, et al., 1999).

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• One of the main reasons for the low coverage
of irrigation is the predominant use of flood
(conventional) method of irrigation, where
water use efficiency is very low due to various
reasons.
• Available estimates indicate that water use
efficiency under flood method of irrigation is
only about 35 to 40 percent because of huge
conveyance and distribution losses.
(https://ecoursesonline.icar.gov.in/mod/page/view.php?id=124902)

Necessity of Irrigation
• Water is necessary for plant growth and maturity.
• Irrigation is the artificial means of supplying
water, becomes important for plant growth in the
following cases:
– If rainfall is less than the demand of plants, irrigation
is necessary to fulfill the water requirement of plants.
– The difference in water holding capacity of the soil
plays important role in the Necessity of Irrigation
supply.
• For example, sandy soil requires frequent irrigation than clay
soil.

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 – If rainfall is sufficient but spatial distribution is not
as per requirement, irrigation becomes necessary.
– If rainfall is sufficient, spatial distribution is also
good but temporal distribution is not as per
requirement, irrigation water is necessary for
plants.
– An advanced scientific development like High
Yielding Varieties Seeds (HYV) demands irrigation.
• irrigation is the most important input for HYV.

Advantages of irrigation
• Increases agricultural productivity and allows
for multiple cropping during the year.
• Provide jobs.
• Reduces risk of crop failures.
• Higher productivity results in steady supply of
food at lower prices (supply demand principle
of economics)
• Improves socioeconomic conditions of farmers

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 Disadvantages
• Excessive irrigation may cause decrease in crop yield
• Excessive irrigation may cause leaching of pesticide,
insecticide, nitrogen and nitrates to groundwater and
may also transport them to surface water systems.
• In poorly drained soils water logging and salinity may
occur.
• In poorly maintained canals- excessive seepage may
cause water logging.
• Excessive groundwater pumping may cause decrease in
groundwater levels which may damage aquifer
structure and increase the risk of land subsidence.

Historical background of irrigation

development in Nepal
• Agrarian communities in the Terai used to
involve in irrigation development and
management much before the 6th century B.C.
• In 17th Century, a number of Raj Kulo were
built with the initiative and financial support
from the state.
• During early period of irrigation development,
farmers themselves used to divert water from
streams and rivers to farm lands.

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 • Between 19th and first half of 20th century, a large
number of irrigation facilities were already
developed by local farmers by using their local
resources.
• Its planned development began only after 1951.
• The Department of Irrigation (DOI) was
established in 1952.
• The 7th five-year plan (1985 - 90) brought a
major change in irrigation development.

Irrigation status
Total area (1000 ha)
Geographic Cultivated Irrigable Irrigated Year Irrigated Year
region round as round
Irrigation % of irrigated
cultivated as% of
irrigated
Terai 1360 1338 889 368 65 41

Hills 1054 369 167 66 16 40

Mountains 227 60 48 18 21 38

Total 2641 1767 1104 452 42 41

Irrigation potential and development in Nepal

(WECS,2003 cited in WECS 2011)

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 Challenges of irrigation development
in Nepal
Some of the key challenges that categorize
irrigation development in Nepal are:
• old infrastructure and poor performances of
the existing irrigation systems;
• poor system efficiency and under–utilization
of canal water;
• weak participation of Water Users
Associations (WUAs),
• weak institutional capacity;

• weak linkages between agriculture and irrigation;

• continuation of subsistence agriculture practices
in command area etc. (not used as commercial).
• Additionally, due to riparian (of or relating to the
bank of a river or stream) issues, in Nepal, it has
not been possible to tap the major river systems
for irrigation development, which discharge
substantial amount of water even during the dry
season.

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• Most of the irrigation systems are thus fed by medium or
small rivers, which almost entirely depend on the rain.
• Moreover, water use efficiency and agricultural productivity
remain low in both the traditional farmer-managed
schemes and the large public irrigation systems.
• Major problems in increasing agricultural productivity in
Nepal include:
i) the lack of irrigation (only 28% of the total agricultural
land (4.21 million ha) is irrigated),
ii) unavailability of inputs such as quality seeds and
fertilizers,
iii) pest complex, and
iv) lack of access to advisory services and marketing.
(http://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2014/04/11/nepal-irrigation-and-water-
resource-management)

Major irrigation projects of Nepal

Irragated Land in
Irrigation Projects District
Hectare
Sharada Kailali, Kanchanpur 6800
Bagmati Multipurpose Bara, Rautahat, Sarlahi 50,200
Rapti Banke 3000
BanGanga Kapilvastu 8000
Kanchan Danav Rupendehi 10000
Kankai Jhapa 8000
Chitwan Chitwan 11100
Sikta Banke 36000
Koshi Saptari 22000
Gandak Bara, Parsa, Rauthat, Nawal Parasi 51000
Babai Bardiya 13000
Marchawar Rupendehi 56000
Eastern Rapti Chitwan 56000
Sunsari Sunsari, Morang 58000

(http://www.geocities.ws/gknepaleyn/data/data/irrigation.html}

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 Status of Agricultural Development in
Nepal
• A small hilly country situated between two larger
economies of the World- China and India
• Three distinct physiographic regions (Mountain,
Mid-hills and Terai) with high climatic variability
• Small, extremely diverse and landlocked, Nepal
confronts special development challenges in the
face of climate change
• Its topography determines that only less than
20% of its land is cultivable yet about 33.1 % of
its GDP and more than 50 % of its export depend
on agriculture

• Main source of food, income and employment for the

great Majority (65.7% of the population)
• Monsoon dependent, under developed
• Subsistence and mixed farming system with
domination of small holder farmers (About 60%
farmers)
• Low level of public and private investment
• Suffered massively from natural calamities; Floods,
Land Slides, Cold Weather, Drought and Earthquakes
• Fast growth in some high value commodities
vegetables, spices, dairy, poultry, fish, etc.
• Year round irrigation facilities are, however, limited to
less than 25 per cent of the arable land.

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 Distribution of Land
• Agriculture Land Cultivated: 30,91,000 ha
• Agriculture Land Uncultivated: 10,30,000 ha
• Forest: 58,28,000 ha
• Water: 3,83,000 ha
• Other: 26,20,000 ha
(Source: ABPSD, MoAD)

Climate
• Nepal’s climate varies with its topography.
• It ranges from tropical (similar to hot and humid
climate) to arctic (extreme cold and icy) depending
upon the altitude.
• The Terai region, which lies in the tropical southern
part of the country, for instance, has a hot, humid
climate.
• The mid-land regions are pleasant almost all year
around, although winter morning and nights are cool.
• The northern mountain region, around an altitude
above 3,353 m has an alpine climate with a
considerably lower temperature and thin air in winter
as can be expected.

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Nepali Seasons
Spring - Basanta : April-May
Summer - Grishma : June-July
Monsoon – Barsha : Late June-Mid September
Autumn - Sharad : September-November
Winter - Hinud : December-January
Windy - Sisir : February-March

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 Importance of water
• How much water is required to make a cup of
tea?
• How much water is required to have a plate of
rice?
• How much water is required to have a plate of
chicken?
• Show

Water requirements for different

products
Water (Liters) Products
1100 One medium size pizza
2400 One kg rice
2600 One cotton shirt
4300 One kg chicken
5200 One ton cement
6800 One pair jeans
15,400 One kg beef
17,000 One kg chocolate
1,48,000 One Car
2,35,000 One ton steel

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• Garg, S. K. (1996). Irrigation Engineering and Hydraulic
Structures, Khanna Publishers, Delhi, Twelfth Edition.
• Gleick, Peter H., 2000. ‘The Changing Water Paradigm:
A Look at Twenty-first Century Water Resources
Development’, Water International, 25: 127-38.
• http://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2014/04/11/ne
pal-irrigation-and-water-resource-management
• http://www.mof.gov.np/uploads/document/file/Agricu
lture_NPPR-2015_20150913011507.pdf
• http://www.wepa-
db.net/policies/state/nepal/state.htm

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