ABSTRACT
Irrigation system design is divided into three major steps. These are: design--land area and storage requirements, design--irrigation requirements and scheduling and design--detailed system design. The product of the first design step is the total land area and storage volume required for the system. The intermediate steps in the determination of land area and storage requirements are: crop selection, distribution system selection, determination of irrigation water requirements, determination of field area requirements and determination of storage requirements. Crop selection is the first step in the design process, because most of the other design decisions depend on the crop. The irrigation system design parameters common to all distribution systems to be determined during Step 2 design are: depth of water applied per irrigation and irrigation frequency. In addition to the construction plans and documents, the design engineer should provide an operation plan for use by the system operator.
