A new irrigation priority index based on remote sensing data for assessing the networks irrigation scheduling

Irrigation scheduling has become an important tool that significantly influences growth, development and production of crops, especially in arid and semi-arid regions of the South Mediterranean. In these regions, most of the irrigation scheduling of the gravity irrigation networks are not optimized in terms of timing and water quantity. In this paper, we present a way of characterizing the irrigation distribution by the extensively used irrigation systems through a new irrigation index: the “irrigation priority index” (IPI). This normalized indicator takes into account the water stress coefficient and the time of irrigation with regard to the duration of an irrigation round. The IPI ranges between −1 and 1 and decreases with irrigation priority.