ABSTRACT
Economic and social development of many areas is dependent upon achieving increased agricultural production. This often requires the opening of additional lands to agriculture through new irrigation projects and also the improvement of existing irrigation systems to insure efficient water use and continued productivity of irrigated lands. Science and technology are now advanced enough, if properly integrated and summarized, to transform irrigation from an age-old art into a modern science capable of providing the basis for productive irrigation projects. An age-old practice in Egypt, improved by modern scientific analysis at the U. S. Salinity Laboratory, provides a clever means of reducing salt damage to germinating seedlings. Modern methods of soil survey and land classification provide an essential inventory and summary of soil characteristics. The irrigated plains of the Indus River and its tributaries in West Pakistan constitute one of the most difficult irrigation and drainage problem areas of the world.
