Many irrigation projects have been constructed in different corners of Ethiopia, with the aim of accelerating the overall economic growth through irrigation as a possible remedy to erratic rainfall. But, they have below the targeted execution. Irrigation performance evaluation has got the highest priority in irrigation research to resolve the problems of irrigation management. The objective of this study was          to evaluate water use efficiency performance of Serenta irrigation scheme. To evaluate it, stratified random sampling was done by stratifying the farmers as head, middle and tail-end users of the water source. Then, four farmers’ fields covered with single crop onion from each location water user of the irrigation scheme were selected. For every plot, water applied depth and soil moisture content before irrigation and after irrigation were measured at all growth stages of the crop. The irrigation depths of water applied to fields were measured using Parshall flumes and the soil moisture contents before and after irrigation were determined using gravimetric method. The results from the field measurement revealed that the amount of water applied  to depth during the onion growing season was more than the crop’s requirement. The average application efficiencies of the selected fields from all growth stages of the crop were 50.2%, 58.5% and 63.5%, with average deep percolation losses 49.8%, 41.5% and 36.5% for head, middle and tail-end water users, respectively. The average storage efficiencies were 87.5%, 80.5% and 83.94%, and distribution uniformity efficiencies 99.2%, 99.1% and 98.63% for head, middle and tail-end, respectively. It can be concluded that the irrigation efficiency can be improved by minimizing water losses and applying water according to crop water requirement.

application efficiency, storage efficiency, distribution efficiency, water loss.

Received: November 14, 2022; Accepted: January 24, 2023; Published: May 6, 2023

How to cite this article: Gebre Gidey Weldeabzgi, Water use efficiency performance evaluation of Serenta irrigation scheme, Northern Ethiopia, Advances and Applications in Fluid Mechanics 30(1) (2023), 63-82. http://dx.doi.org/10.17654/0973468623004

This Open Access Article is Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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