Irrigation technologies such as sprinklers, surface, or drip systems have trade-offs in efficiency, cost, and water losses. While these irrigation technologies have a different application efficiency, ranging from about 40-99%, considering the destination of lost water is vital for long-term water management in Utah. Water "losses" are different for each system, including evaporation, runoff, deep percolation, and wind drift. Some of these losses are potentially more recoverable than others. To compare technologies and provide valuable indices for improvement, we will describe irrigation application efficiency and the destinations of application water losses for sprinklers, surface, and drip systems. We then introduce the ratio of short-term (recoverable) to long-term (non-recoverable) water losses and compare the three irrigation technologies and their trade-offs between increasing application efficiency and the recovery or reuse of lost water. Finally, we will demonstrate why Utah water managers and planners should consider application efficiency and potentially recoverable losses when designing, managing, and modifying long-term water management in irrigation systems.
Bradley Crookston
Bradley Crookston recently graduated from Utah State University with a Ph.D. in soil science and a graduate certificate in Anticipatory Intelligence. He has an M.S. in Plant, Soil, and Environmental Science from West Texas A&M University and a B.S. degree from BYU-Idaho. Bradley has studied soil health assessments in cover cropped corn-soybean systems of the Midwest, reduced irrigation practices in the Texas Panhandle, and is currently a USDA-NIFA Postdoctoral Fellow at USU studying principles of systems complexity in agroecological research.
Matt Yost
Troy Peters