Simulation of drip irrigation on slope lands

Abstract

One of the main tasks of drip irrigation is to predict the geometric parameters of the moisture contours by estimating the impact of the water rate and the irrigation water on the moisture distribution in the soil. In this paper the soil water retention curve and function of moisture conductivity are used to simulate the process of moisture movement taking into account both the state and the type of soil. A software tool has been developed to automate calculations and visualize them. One of the main advantages of this software tool is that it allows using three-dimensional arrays of porosity values, specific surface area and initial soil moisture for each elementary volume of soil. The results of simulating various initial conditions make it possible to form contours and maintain optimum soil moisture right in the area of the plant root zone development. The correspondence of the simulation results to real data was verified by a series of laboratory and field experiments having light-gray forest soil. The calculated coefficients of determination have average values, that are quite high for such tasks, namely 0.68 (horizontal surfaces) and 0.72 (inclined surfaces).