Large-Scale Pressurized Irrigation Systems Diagnostic Performance Assessment and Operation Simulation

The assessment of actual performance and potential improvement of conveyance and distribution systems received greater attention in recent years, and this trend will most likely extend to the near future, given that public and private investments will be more addressed to modernization of ageing or poor-performing irrigation schemes rather than to development of new irrigated areas or to expansion of existing irrigation schemes. In the perspective of service-oriented management, existing irrigation systems should be periodically evaluated for their performance achievements relative to current and future objectives. This requires diagnostic methodologies to analyze system behavior, assess current performance, identify critical aspects and weaknesses, and to investigate potential improvements. In this domain, several authors (Small and Svendsen 1992; Murray-Rust and Snellen 1993; Burt and Styles 2004) reported a remarkable lack of analytical frameworks by means of which irrigation managers or professional auditors can assess current achievements and diagnose feasible ways to enhance performance in the future. On the other hand, as pointed out by Prajamwong et al. (1997), identifying and implementing improvement changes entail the collection of field measurements and the use of analytical tools for developing feasible alternative scenarios and for selecting the most effective measures with the greatest impact on system performance.