Many irrigation projects have been constructed in different corners of Ethiopia, with the aim of accelerating the overall economic growth through irrigation as a possible remedy to erratic rainfall and its subsequent hunger. But, they have below the targeted execution. Irrigation performance evaluation has got the highest priority in irrigation research to resolve the problems of irrigation management. The objective of this study was to evaluate performance of field level water use efficiency at Serenta irrigation scheme, Tigray region, Ethiopia. To evaluate it, stratified random sampling was done by stratifying the farmers as head, middle and tail-end users of the water source. Then, four farmers’ fields covered with single crop onion from each location water user of the irrigation scheme were selected. For every plot, water applied depth and soil moisture contentment before irrigation and after irrigation was made at all growth stages of the crop. The irrigation depths of water applied to fields were measured using Parshall flumes and the soil moisture contents before and after irrigation were determined using gravimetric method. The results from the field measurement revealed that, the amount of water applied depth during the onion growing season was more than the crop’s requirement. The average application efficiency of the selected fields from all growth stages of the crop was, 50.2%, 58.5% and 63.5%, with average deep percolation losses 49.8%, 41.5%, 36.5% for head, middle and tail-end water users, respectively. The average storage efficiency was, 87.5%, 80.5 % and 83.94%, and distribution uniformity efficiency was, 99.2%, 99.1% and 98.63% for head, middle and tail-end, respectively. The average water use productivity was 1.28 kg/m3, 1.78 kg/m3 and 2.04 kg/m3 for head, middle and tail-end users, respectively. It can be concluded that the irrigation efficiency can be improve by minimizing water losses and applying water according to crop water requirement.
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Irrigation & Drainage Systems Engineering received 835 citations as per Google Scholar report
