A kinematic model for surface irrigation: Verification by experimental data

An edited version of this paper was published by AGU. Copyright 1983 American Geophysical Union.A kinematic model for surface irrigation is verified by experimental data obtained for 31 borders. These borders are of varied characteristics. Calculated values of advance times, water surface profiles when water reaches the end of the border, and recession times are compared with their observations. The prediction error in most cases remains below 20% for the advance time and below 15% for the recession time. The water surface profiles computed by the model agree with observed profiles reasonably well. For the data analyzed here the kinematic wave model is found to be sufficiently accurate for modeling the entire irrigation cycle except for the vertical recession.This study was supported in part by funds provided by the National Science Foundation under the project Free Boundary Problems in Water Resource Engineering, NSF-ENG-79- 23345