Abstract

Irrigation efficiency is a basic engineering term used in irrigation science to characterize irrigation performance, evaluate irrigation water use, and to promote better or improved use of water resources, particularly those used in agriculture and turf/landscape management. It affects the economics of irrigation, the amount of water needed to irrigate a specific land area, the spatial uniformity of the crop and its yield, the amount of water that might percolate beneath the crop root zone, the amount of water that can return to surface sources for downstream uses or to groundwater aquifers that might supply other water uses, and the amount of water lost to unrecoverable sources.