Field Evaluation of Furrow Irrigation Models

In this study, four furrow irrigation models, referred to as the Ross, Walker, Strelkoff and Elliott models are evaluated for their prediction of advance and recession times and runoff, and for their computational time per simulation run and volume balance error under three field conditions in south-east Australia. The models simulated irrigation events based on hydrodynamic (HD), zeroinertia (ZI) and kinematic-wave (KW) approaches. Eighty-one irrigation events were monitored over a 3-year period. The models were applied to all the events, and it was found that the Walker HD, Walker ZI, Ross ZI and Elliott ZI models performed best in predicting advance times and the Strelkoff ZI and Strelkoff KW models performed best in predicting recession times. Considering the overall suitability of the models, both the Walker hydrodynamic and Walker zero inertia models are the most suitable for the field conditions encountered in the study.