DEVELOPMENT OF MICRO IRRIGATION DESIGN SOFTWARE (MIDS) TO OPTIMIZE TOTAL PROJECT COST AND HYDRAULIC PARAMETERS

Iran is a large producer of agricultural products. Irrigation water resources are limited and the water use efficiency is low. The micro irrigation system (MIS) is a versatile management tool that can increase water productivity. Although micro irrigation has a lot of advantages, some of its disadvantages are its difficult and time-consuming design. Economical analysis of the design is one of the main factors that should be considered. This study introduces a model developed in Visual Basic called Micro Irrigation Design Software (MIDS). The software can design a MIS for various crops, climate, and topographic conditions. It calculates the primary design parameters such as ETo, ETC, irrigation water depth, wetting pattern and leaching fraction. This software determines suitable arrangements of pipes, pipe length and diameter, emitters, hydraulic parameters design, and head loss. The manifolds and main pipes could be designed as mono-diameter and telescopic, and the optimized size is reported to the user. The focus of this software is on economic analysis in accordance with electricity price, energy consumption use and initial and operation projects costs. To examine the software accuracy, some executed projects (manually designed) in Fars province were rechecked considering electricity energy price in Iran. Results showed that the Software was able to provide more reliable design parameters, also with electricity price build-up to more than a certain limit, It would be possible to increase the pipeline diameters to a certain extent with a better economic result during the project lifetime.