Teaching canal hydraulics and control using a computer game or a scale model canal

Irrigation is well known for being the largest water user, responsible for about 70% of the total amount of fresh water withdrawals. At the same time, this irrigation contributes for about 40% of the total food production and is vital for many regions of the world such as Western USA, Australia, Southern Europe, and many countries in Asia and Africa. Recent FAO figures indicate that, by the year 2030, food production will have to be increased by about 80% with only a possible increase of 12% of the water withdrawal. One unavoidable way of being able to reach this agenda is to reduce water demand by improving the hydraulic efficiency of irrigation schemes. Technical concepts involved in these modernization projects include open channel hydraulics and control engineering, which are usually taught in separate college curricula. Such projects are carried out in many places in the world, especially in developing countries, with the help of engineers, canal managers and decision makers. This paper presents two innovative teaching initiatives targeting this audience, with a view to present classical and modern techniques to improve the hydraulic efficiency of irrigation canals. One is based on a computer game using the SIC hydrodynamic model developed by Cemagref, France and the other one is based on a scaled canal located at the USBR Hydraulics Laboratory in Denver, Colorado, USA.