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Identical coursesAgricultural Water Management (B-KUL-I0J63A)
Cannot be taken as part of an examination contract
Diels Jan (coordinator) | Diels Jan | Gobin Anne | Janssens Pieter | Wyseure Guido Aims
Agricultural water management is essential to climate adaptation by ensuring efficient water allocation and optimal water use. This course unit offers students a comprehensive introduction to the water balance of cropped fields and the technology to manage this balance. The student gains insights and skills necessary for calculating crop water needs and the amount of water to apply depending on the irrigation method used. The course also highlights the major drainage practices, derives key drainage equations and touches upon the choice and installation of drainage systems. Finally, we discuss the options of adaptive drainage systems as a solution to buffer more water in drained agricultural fields.
Students should not take this course unit when they also have the course unit Gewasgroeimonitoring en -modellering (B-KUL-I0J24A) in their ISP: there is too much overlap between both courses although there are important differences too.
The theoretical part is covered using the flipped-classroom approach: During pre-class sessions, students have to prepare each of the in-class sessions by completing an online module (on Toledo) offering presentations with voice-over, selected chapters in the course handbook and a minor pre-class assignment. The sessions in class are used to discuss more advanced aspects and address questions from the students.
During the practical exercises in class, students receive training in the calculations needed to know how much to irrigate and when, and in the use of the software packages that are useful for designing irrigation schemes and to examine how efficient irrigation methods are in the field. Students learn to estimate drainage criteria and optimal distance between the drains.
Through several assignments, students execute practical examples (calculations) in more detail and are trained in scientific reporting.
The course unit is completed with a half-day excursion to (a) farmer(s) and/or an experimental station where irrigation is used.
Upon successful completion of the course, a student can:
- estimate crop water requirements
- optimise irrigation water requirements at the level of a field or an entire irrigation perimeter
- discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different irrigation methods
- plan and evaluate the water supply for irrigation projects
- calculate and evaluate a drainage system
- discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different drainage methods
- understand the possibilities of adaptive drainage
Previous knowledge
Students are supposed to have basic knowledge and skills in mathematics, physics, soil science, crop production and plant physiology
Order of Enrolment
This course unit is a prerequisite for taking the following course units:
I0D27A : Water Productivity and Irrigation Design
I0S76A : Thesis Research Project Water Resources Engineering
I0S78A : Research Methods for Data Collection and Processing
Is included in these courses of study
- Master of Water Resources Engineering (Leuven et al) 120 ects.
- Master of Water Resources Engineering (abridged programme 60 ECTS) (Leuven et al) 60 ects.
- Courses for Exchange Students Faculty of Bioscience Engineering (Leuven)
- Master in de bio-ingenieurswetenschappen: landbeheer (Leuven) (Major bodem- en watersystemen) 120 ects.
- Master of Bioscience Engineering: Agro- and Ecosystems Engineering (Leuven) (Major Subject: Soil and Water Systems) 120 ects.
Activities
2.5 ects. Agricultural Water Management - Lectures: Theory and Methods (B-KUL-I0J63a)
Content
- Importance of water management for agriculture and nature conservation
- Irrigation game ‘Water Matters’
- Computation of the crop water requirements
- Concepts for understanding soil water dynamics: water potential, water retention, hydraulic conductivity, Darcy-Buckingham, capillary rise
- Computation of the net and gross irrigation requirement;
- Estimation of field and scheme water requirements.
- Crop water requirements and gains of water by rainfall and capillary rise; Leaching requirement to prevent soil salinity
- Distribution, application and project efficiency in irrigation schemes.
- Irrigation scheduling when the water supply is not limiting and under conditions of water scarcity (e.g. deficit irrigation);
- Performance criteria for irrigation methods: efficiency, uniformity and adequacy.
- Surface irrigation: operation of furrow and rice basins, estimation of advance time and needed infiltration time for furrow irrigation.
- Sprinkler irrigation: different types and operation of sprinkler systems and estimation of wind drift losses, uniformity, impact of nozzle size and pressure on distribution of water.
- Drip irrigation: operation, components of the drip system and estimation of the wet bulb.
- Short introduction to water distribution for irrigation by surface and pressurized systems.
- Stationary and non-stationary design formulas for drainage. Drainage criteria for agriculture. Technical feasibility of water flow as a function of the soil. Implementation of water table management (subsurface) by canals and drains. Mole and superficial drainage for heavy textured soils.
- Controlled drainage
Extra modules are foreseen to allow students to remediate gaps in knowledge at the start:
- For students who did not take ‘Klimatologie’ or another course in which reference evapotranspiration (ETo) and frequency analysis of rainfall was covered, there are modules on these aspects.
Course material
- Course slides
- Course text
- Online modules to acquire (practical and theoretical) knowledge about agricultural water management
Format: more information
Business game - Flipped classroom - Individual assignment - MOOC
Students follow in-class sessions that consist mainly of discussions on theoretical aspects and methods of agricultural water management.
During pre-class sessions, students have to prepare each of the in-class sessions by completing an online module (on Toledo) offering presentations with voice-over, selected chapters in the course handbooks and a minor pre-class assignment.
2.5 ects. Agricultural Water Management - Workshops: Exercises, Assignments and Excursion (B-KUL-I0J64a)
Content
The practical exercises in class aim at training the students in:
- computation of the crop water requirements, and the net and gross irrigation requirement, including the special case of paddy rice and the calculation of the leaching requirement to prevent soil salinity.
- calculation of the soil water balance and the scheduling of irrigation (including deficit irrigation).
- calculations that help to improve the efficiencies of the irrigation methods: wind drift for sprinkler, wetted area and wet bulb for drip and the time-distance graph for furrow irrigation, irrigation uniformity, and application and distribution efficiencies
- use of the FAO water productivity model AquaCrop
- design and manage agricultural drainage
Assignment:
The homework consists of several small assignments (irrigation requirements, irrigation scheduling, drainage systems) and the writing of a short scientific report describing the method, discussing the results and formulating conclusions for each assignment.
Excursion:
Irrigation methods and equipment are illustrated during a half-day excursion to a farmer and/or an experimental station where irrigation is used.
Course material
- Course text and exercises
- Online modules on AquaCrop
Format: more information
Company visit - Computer session - Individual assignment - Practice session
Students learn how to do the necessary calculations needed for irrigation and drainage, including (an introduction to) the use of the FAO water productivity model AquaCrop. This is complemented with an excursion at the end of the semester and with individual assignments on irrigation and drainage problems.
Evaluation
Evaluation: Agricultural Water Management (B-KUL-I2J63a)
Explanation
Quotation on written exam consisting of sample problems (open book) (30% of weight) and questions about the theory (closed book) (40% of weight), and on an assessment of homework (reports to be submitted beforehand by Toledo) (30% of weight).
Submission of the individual tasks is mandatory and no final examination is allowed without submission of the tasks. The course will hence be considered as "not completed" (NA) in the next examination period.
Information about retaking exams
Assignments (reports) do not need to be repeated or re-submitted for the second exam opportunity unless a student wants to improve a report knowing it was not up to standard.