Effectiveness of Surge Flow Irrigation in Egypt : Water Use Efficiency in Field Crop Production

This dissertation, submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the Academic Board of Wageningen University and the Academic Board of UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, demonstrates the applicability of surge flow irrigation for water saving under the short field conditions that prevail in

Egypt is a country of tremendous land resources but limited water resources The area of cultivated land is only 3.2 per cent of the gross area. The river Nile is the main sources of water. In the recent years the Governement established large-scale agricultural projects in light of food security related to the population growth. Expansion of irrigated agriculture has to be predomantly relalized bt increasing the water use efficiency. In Egypt, the dominant irrigation method is surface irrigation, which covers approximately 83 per cent of the irrigated areas. Surface irrigation or gravity methods are generally characterized by a low efficiency. One opportunity to increase the efficiency is to convert surface irrigation to modern irrigation systems, which are generaly highly expensive for a country like Egypt. Another option to increase the efficiency of surface irrigation systems is to convert the traditional irrigation method based on continuous flow to surge flow irrigation. Surge flow irrigation is the intermittent application of water to furrows in a series of relatively short on and off time periods.