Impproving the performance of Hurriya-Dagharah Irrigation project using Aqua-Crop Model

Abstract

 Iraq has experienced a depletion of water mainly because of climate change, and decrease for water. There is for instance the Daghara/Huriyh Irrigation Project, which is an agro centric, large-scale project involving Qadisiyah Governorate to solve issues of water management. Several objectives of the study were established, namely evaluating the application of the currently installed irrigation system, the storage and distribution in the fields, and canals and the overall performance of the project. Nine fields were assessed, Three (A1, A2, A3) in the first, (B1, B2, and B3) in the second and (C1, C2, C3) in the third phase respectively. This entailed the measurement of water potential concerning moisture content, field capacity and discharge was done. There was thus a poor irrigation efficiency, which was estimated to range from 36%. 768% and 42. Nine percent for the different tools while the evaluated storage efficiency ranges from 50. 17% and 77. 47%, while the anti-inflation target is set at 15%, import price level at 26% and distribution efficiency at between 93%. 9% and 97. 6%. This revealed that conveyance efficiency of water was 86. 38 % while the overall efficiency towards the project completion was only 32 %. 39 % for high wastage from irrigation. Therefore, using AquaCrop model, the virtual irrigation efficiency was estimated using the overall 80% sprinkler irrigation and 20% drip irrigation allocation. Among all the irrigation techniques, Sprinkler was found to be most efficient, second to that was drip Irrigation (90. 36 %). The tested virtual efficiency with sprinklers was 68. 39% and with drip irrigation it 77. 25 %, which is close to two and the respondents reported half times the actual efficiency. This improvement could lift the ratio in cultivated area from 107000 to 239000 dunums for the same water volume.