Challenges of surface irrigation development, water and land productivity in Egypt

Abstract

Irrigation development is a gateway to increased agricultural, water and land productivity, increased 
household and national food security. However, irrigation development has been a major challenge in 
many developing countries, including Egypt. The overall objective of this study is to detect the 
influence of different irrigation systems on water-use efficiency, crop and soil salinity in highly soil 
salinity. Two techniques were applied in experiment, the first technique was siphon irrigation, and the 
second one was gated pipe. The monitored parameters were water table depth, water and soil salinity 
and crop yield. The study revealed that the intensive management is a very important aspect for the 
success of siphon technique and cotton crop yield was higher by 17% compared to gated pipe 
irrigation treatment. The total soil salinity increased in both treatments. The siphon method increases 
the average salinity by 2.7% while the gated pipe increased it by 12.9%; converging the value of the 
crop coefficient in all relations used in most stages of growth, except Penman relationship which gave 
the highest values.