Performance Measures for Evaluation of Irrigation‐Water‐Delivery Systems

TLDR

The study develops performance measures to evaluate irrigation‑water delivery systems for adequacy, efficiency, dependability, and equity, and proposes using them in monitoring programs to assess improvement alternatives. The measures compute quantitative performance by integrating spatial and temporal distributions of required, scheduled, deliverable, and delivered water—estimated via field measurement and simulation—and decompose contributions from structural and management components across subregions and network levels. Applications to irrigation systems in Sri Lanka and Egypt demonstrate that the measures effectively evaluate system performance.

Abstract

Performance measures are developed that facilitate analysis of irrigation‐water delivery systems in terms of adequacy, efficiency, dependability, and equity of water delivery. The measures provide a quantitative assessment not only of overall system performance, but also of contributions to performance from the structural and management components of the system. Spatial and temporal distributions of required, scheduled, deliverable, and delivered water are used to calculate the performance measures. These variables may be estimated by a combination of field‐measurement and simulation techniques. The performance measures can be incorporated in an irrigation‐system monitoring program and can provide a framework for assessing system improvement alternatives. They are amenable to decomposition analysis of systems, allowing assessment of trends in performance among distinctly defined subregions or comparison of performance at different levels of system‐network hierarchy. Example applications to systems typical of Sri Lanka and Egypt indicate the usefulness of the measures in system evaluation.