Evaluation of Hydraulic Performance of Irrigation Scheme at Kuraz Sugar Development Project, Jinka, Ethiopia

Performance assessment of irrigation system is important to conserve the scarce resource of water through improving performance of existing irrigation schemes. However, there was no study in the past on performance assessment of Kuraz Irrigation Scheme. Thus, this study was to evaluate the hydraulic performance of the irrigation scheme using hydraulic performance indicators. The study was carried out during the irrigation season from June to August, 2019. According to the results of the study, the value of adequacy, dependability, equity, equity ratio over head to tail, efficiency and deficiency were found to be 0.98, 0.03, 0.04, 0.91, 0.81 and 0.02 respectively. The values show that water delivery system of the scheme had a good performance. The conveyance system was satisfied 98% out of the total required amount of irrigation water during study period. The overall efficiency of the system was 81%, which implies that the efficiency of water supply was satisfactory. The overall average value of conveyance efficiency of the 3.33km Secondary canal was 81.20%. The conveyance loss was 18.80% of the water. Siltation and vegetation growth within the canal interferes with water flow reducing the conveyance efficiency. The values of effectiveness of infrastructure, water surface elevation ratio, delivery duration ratio and sustainability of irrigated areas were found to be 89.68%, 96%, 87.5% and 95.56% respectively. The results of maintenance indicators showed that the system requires minimum level of maintenance due to sedimentation of secondary canal, improper operation and management of the system. Hence, adequate maintenance and other proper management techniques are essential to improve the irrigation system performance.