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 monodiameter
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.