Journal of Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers ISSN:1738-3692(Print) 2093-7709(Online) 한국농공학회논문집

Water losses in irrigation canals are mainly estimated as the sum of conveyance and delivery water loss. The losses occur via the evaporation, infiltration, gate operation and water distribution processing. Recently, the study regarding these water losses are not satisfactory enough, also delivery water loss has not been mainly considered on field design.The objective of this study is to investigate and analyze the volume of water loss in irrigation canals considering condition of actual farm land. A field measurement was performed at four research sites, which are managed by Korea Rural Community & Agriculture Corporation, to evaluate conveyance and delivery water loss for 2 years. The measurement was performed by canal type, size and designed flow using the inflow-outflow method at a major points such as start and end of each canal, derivation point of canal and inlet of paddy fields. Results of this study showed that water loss ratio in lateral canals was bigger than that of main canal unlike current design standard and the loss decrease as flow increase. The total of water loss ratio including conveyance and delivery water loss in several irrigation canals ranged between 33.25 and 45.0%.