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Irrigation Canals

This document discusses irrigation canals, including their purpose, advantages, disadvantages, design criteria, types, and structures. The main points are: 1. Irrigation canals convey water from sources like rivers and lakes to farms. Their purpose is to efficiently distribute water to irrigated lands. 2. Advantages include increased biomass, minimized rainfall dependence, and higher productivity. Disadvantages can include marshy land and disease spread. 3. Design considers the canal's cross-section, side slopes, longitudinal slope, permissible velocities, roughness, and freeboard for water flow. Lined canals reduce water losses through impermeable layers.

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April Loureen Dale Talha
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278 views

Irrigation Canals

This document discusses irrigation canals, including their purpose, advantages, disadvantages, design criteria, types, and structures. The main points are: 1. Irrigation canals convey water from sources like rivers and lakes to farms. Their purpose is to efficiently distribute water to irrigated lands. 2. Advantages include increased biomass, minimized rainfall dependence, and higher productivity. Disadvantages can include marshy land and disease spread. 3. Design considers the canal's cross-section, side slopes, longitudinal slope, permissible velocities, roughness, and freeboard for water flow. Lined canals reduce water losses through impermeable layers.

Uploaded by

April Loureen Dale Talha
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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IRRIGATION CANALS

CE 511 – IRRIGATION ENGINEERING


Introduction
• IRRIGATION CANAL - a waterway, often man-made or
enhanced, built for the purpose of carrying water
from a source such as a lake, river, or stream, to soil
used for farming.
Introduction
• Purpose of Irrigation canals:
1. To convey irrigation water to one or more irrigated
areas.
2. Help regulate the flow and deliver the correct
amount of water to the different branches of the
systems and onward to the irrigated fields.
3. To facilitate the efficient distribution and use of
water on irrigated land.
Introduction
• Advantages of Irrigation Canals
1. Increase the quantity of biomass in the area.
2. Minimized the dependence on rainfall.
3. Higher productivity per hectare.
4. Requires only maintenance to get its benefits for a long time.
5. Helps elevate groundwater table.
6. Becoming a tourist attractions.
Introduction
• Disadvantages of Irrigation Canals
1. Land can be marshy.
2. Can cause widespread diseases.
3. Reduction of capacity of the canal.
4. Generates many types of social evils along the canal areas.
Design Criteria
1. Shape of the Cross-section of the Canal
- The selection of a cross-section for a canal is one involving
economy of construction and maintenance as well as security
against failure which may be disastrous to an irrigation system.
It requires consideration of the theory of flow of water in
channels.
• The section should satisfy the following:
1. Carry the necessary amount of water
2. Conserve grade so as to cover the greatest possible area
3. Require the least amount of excavation in its construction
Design Criteria
• It should be noted that, the hydraulically efficient section is not
necessarily the most economic section.
In practice the following factors are to be kept in mind: 
1. The hydraulically efficient section minimizes the area required to convey a
specified discharge. however, the area which required to be excavated to
achieve the flow area required by the hydraulically efficient section may be
much larger if one considers the removal of the over burden.
2. It may not be possible to construct a hydraulically efficient stable section
in the available natural condition. If the channel is to be lined, the cost of the
lining may be comparable with the cost of excavation.
3. The cost of excavation depends on the amount of material that is to
removed, in addition to. Further Topography of the land access to the site
also influence the cost of disposal of the material removed.
4. The slope of the channel bed must be considered also as a variable since
it is not necessarily completely defined by topographic consideration. For
example, a reduced channel slope may require a larger flow area to convey
the flow, on the other hand the cost of excavation of the overburden may be
reduced.
Design Criteria
2. Side Slope of the Canal
- The side slopes of a channel depend primarily on the engineering
properties of the material through which the channel is excavated. In
many cases, side slopes are determined by the economics of
construction.
• In many unlined earthen canals, side slopes are usually 1.5:1;
However, side slopes as steep as 1:1 have been used when the
channel runs through cohesive materials.
• In lined canals, the side slopes are generally steeper than in an
unlined canal. If concrete is the lining material, side slopes greater
than 1: 1 usually require the use of forms, and with side slopes greater
than 0 .75: 1 the linings must be designed to withstand earth
pressures. Some types of lining require side slopes as flat as those
used for unlined channels.
Design Criteria
3. Longitudinal Bed Slopes
- The longitudinal slope of the channel is influenced by
topography, the head required to carry the design flow, and
the purpose of the channel.

4. Permissible Velocities – Minimum and


Maximum
• - that canals carrying water with higher velocities may scour
the bed and the sides of the channel leading to the collapse of
the canal and the weeds and plants grow in the channel when
the nutrients are available in the water.
Design Criteria
5. Roughness coefficient
Design Criteria
6. Freeboard
- Freeboard is an extra depth of a canal section, above the
water surface for 100 % flow rate capacity, usually for uniform
flow conditions.
Types of Canals
2 types of canals based on use:
1. Aqueducts – water supply canals that are used for the
conveyance and delivery of potable water for human
consumption, municipal uses and agricultural irrigation.
Types of Canals
2. Waterways – navigable transportation canals used for carrying
ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people.
Lined Canals
- Canals that has an impermeable layer that improves the bed
and sides of canal to reduce seepage losses of water.

Unlined Canals
• Canals that are not constructed but are naturally made and
with loose embankment.
• Bed and banks made up of natural soil
• High seepage and conveyance water losses
• Profuse growth of aquatic weeds retards the flow
Types of Canal Linings
1. Cement Concrete Lining
- Concrete linings are widely used, with benefits justifying their
relatively high cost. They are tough, durable, relatively
impermeable and hydraulically efficient. Concrete linings are
suitable for both small and large channels and both high and low
flow velocities.
Types of Canal Linings
2. Brick Lining
- The canal is said to be lined with bricks when the sides and bed
are protected with brick surfacing laid in cement mortar.
Types of Canal Linings
3. Plastic Lining
- The plastic as a material for canal lining offers certain
characteristic advantages like negligible weight, easy for
handling, spreading and transport, immune to chemical action
and speedy construction. The plastic film is spread on the
prepared subgrade of the canal. The film is then covered with
protective soil cover.
Types of Canal Linings
4. Boulder Lining
This type of lining is constructed with dressed stone blocks laid
in mortar. Irregular stone blocks are dressed and chipped off as
per requirement.
Canal Structures
- help regulate the flow and deliver the correct
amount of water to the different branches of
the system and onward to the irrigated fields.
- There are four main types of structures:
erosion control structures, distribution control
structures, crossing structures and water
measurement structures.
Canal Structures
1. Erosion Control Structures
a. Canal Erosion
Canal Structures
b. Drop structures and chutes
Canal Structures
2. Distribution Control Structures
a. Division boxes
Canal Structures
b. Turnouts
Canal Structures
c. Checks
Canal Structures
3. Crossing Structures
- It is often necessary to carry irrigation water across roads,
hillsides and natural depressions. Crossing structures, such as
flumes, culverts and inverted siphons, are then required.
a. Flumes
- Flumes are used to carry irrigation water across gullies, ravines
or other natural depressions. They are open canals made of
wood (bamboo), metal or concrete which often need to be
supported by pillars.
Canal Structures
b. Culverts
Canal Structures
c. Inverted siphons
Canal Structures
4. Water measurement structures
- In these structures, the water depth is read on a scale which is
part of the structure. Using this reading, the flow-rate is then
computed from standard formulas or obtained from standard
tables prepared specially for the structure
a. Weir
- In its simplest form, a weir consists of a wall of timber, metal or
concrete with an opening with fixed dimensions cut in its edge.
The opening, called a notch, may be rectangular, trapezoidal or
triangular.
Canal Structures
b. Parshall flumes
Canal Structures
c. Cut-throat flume
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THE END…

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