PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF SEYSA IRRIGATION SCHEME, TIGRAY, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The potential benefits of Seysa Irrigation Scheme hardly realized the required objectives due to satisfactory performance of their water delivery system and system maintenance. Hence, this study attempts to evaluate the hydraulic performance of small-scale irrigation scheme using technical performance parameters. The hydraulic performance of the system was evaluated using 10 selected process performance indicators, classified under three groups i.e. conveyance, water utility and maintenance indicators in the first way and in some selected farms technical performance indicators, application efficiency, distribution uniformity and storage efficiency were evaluated. According to the results of the study, the irrigation scheme has an average application, distribution and storage efficiency values of 65.44%, 59.42% and 73.87% respectively. Average delivery performance ratio, the value of adequacy, dependability and equity are estimated to be 0.83, 0.83, 0.18 and 0.21 respectively, which results fair water delivery performance. The equity ratio of water distribution for head to tail is fair 1.23. The head received more water than the tail. The average deficit of the system is 0.17; the main canal supplies less water than the demand to the delivery point. The value of water surface elevation ratio, delivery duration ratio and sustainability of infrastructure were found to be 86, 150 and 87.5 percent respectively, it displayed as system maintenance is required. According to the study results, the performance of the system is fair