An Inventory of Irrigation Software for Microcomputers
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
AN INVENTORY OF IRRIGATION SOFTWARE FOR MICROCOMPUTERS K.J. Lenselink & M. Jurriëns Wageningen, January 1993 International Institute for Land Reclamation and Improvement/ ILRI, Wageningen, The Netherlands I TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 1 References 3 2. COMPUTER USE; TRENDS, TYPES AND LIMITATIONS 2.1 General trends 5 2.2 Types and purposes of computer use 6 2.3 Computer use in irrigation 7 2.4 Limitations 9 References 10 3. ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY 3.1 Set-up and execution 11 3.2 Structure of the report 11 3.3 Loose ends 13 References 14 4. IRRIGATION GAMES 4.1 Background information 15 4.2 Non-computer based games 16 4.3 Computer-based games 19 References 23 5. WATER REQUIREMENTS AND SCHEDULING 5.1 Crop water requirements 25 5.2 Programs for water requirements 26 5.3 Irrigation scheduling 28 5.4 Irrigation scheduling programs 30 References 31 6. FIELD IRRIGATION 6.1 Surface irrigation 35 6.2 Surface irrigation programs 37 6.3 Pressurized irrigation programs 41 6.4 Other programs 42 References 43 7. CANALS AND CANAL NETWORKS 7.1 Open channels 47 7.2 Types of programs 48 7.3 Programs for channel design 49 7.4 Programs for open distribution networks 52 References 55 8. PIPE NETWORKS 8.1 Pipe flow 59 8.2 Pipe networks 60 8.3 Programs for network calculations 61 References 62 9. STRUCTURES 9.1 Irrigation structures 65 9.2 Programs for weir design 66 References 68 10. IRRIGATION SYSTEM MANAGEMENT 10.1 Defining the subject 71 10.2 Types of programs 72 10.3 Programs for irrigation system management 73 10.4 Other programs 76 References 78 11. DRAINAGE 1 1.1 Drainage for agriculture 81 11.2 Some programs for land drainage 82 1 1.3 Single purpose programs 83 l1.4 Soil moisture flow programs 84 1 1.5 Groundwater and salinity programs 86 1 I .6 Integrated programs 88 References 90 12. OTHER PROGRAMS 12.1 General remarks 93 12.2 A few more programs 94 13. PRACTICAL SOFTWARE USABILITY CRITERIA 13.1 Introductory remarks 99 13.2 Hardware requirements 101 13.3 User-friendliness 102 13.4 The manual 104 13.5 Availability 105 14. SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 14.1 Summary 107 14.2 General conclusions 109 14.3 Recommendations 111 ANNEX 1. DESCRIPTIVE FORMS 113 ANNEX 2. ADDRESSES 161 INDEX OF PROGRAM NAMES 169 CHAPTER 1 1 1. INTRODUCTION The role of microcomputers has been increasing at a fast rate during the past 10 years or so. Before 1980, computers were used relatively scarcely, and mainly in universities and research institutes in western countries. With the introduction of microcomputers in the early 1980’s computer use has not only become much more common in the industrialized world, but has also gained wider acceptance in developing countries, especially over the past five years. Some of these more general trends in computer use are described in Sections 2.1 and 2.2. Computer use has also increased in the world of irrigation and drainage (see Section 2.3) and thus also within the International Institute for Land Reclamation and Improvement (ILRI). Because the Institute has a main task in collecting and disseminating knowledge in these two areas, it is only logical that it has a genuine interest in the application of microcomputers. Computers have been used at ILRI for variou’s purposes, such as developing simulation or calculation models, besides administration and word-processing. They have also been used as a training tool in irrigation and drainage courses, particularly in the annual International Course on Land Drainage, organized by the Institute since 1961. Although hardware developments in the personal computer area have been fast and price reductions have led to their widespread use in many modem institutions concerned with irrigation and drainage, especially the software situation in this area is lagging behind. Many institutions and private persons recognized the potential benefits and started developing branch-specific software for research, training, design and management. This led ‘to a rather large volume of literature, discussing mathematical models and computer programs, but it is difficult to obtain a user-oriented overview of the programs that are available, useful and working well. In a number of disciplines surrounding irrigation, computer modelling efforts have been summarised from time to time, e.g. in hydraulics (Waldrop, 1985), in soil water dynamics (Hillel, 1977; Feddes et al., 1988), in agricultural hydrology (ASAE, 1980; Haan et al., 1982; ASAE, 1988), and in drinking water supply (e.g. Coulbeck & Orr, 1989). When writing this publication such a summary was, as far as we were aware, not available for the entire field of irrigation and/or drainage. The International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) pays attention to sub-issues from time to time, as e.g. during a workshop on Crop Water Models in Rio de Janeiro in 1990 (see also Pereira et al., 1992). Moreover, the ICID Workshop on Subsurface Drainage Simulation Models in The Hague, The Netherlands, in September 1993, will bring together knowledge in another sub-area. Although efforts thus exist in certain sub- sectors of irrigation, we nevertheless thought that it would be useful to make a start with a more general inventory of microcomputer models available to the irrigation practitioner. The majority of the work was done during the first half of 1992. INTRODUCTION 2 The result of such a state-of-affairs inventory, with major emphasis on usability, is presented in this publication. The set-up and the organization of this search are discussed in Chapter 3. Meanwhile, two more important sources of information became available, both on the sub-area of canal models and programs. One was the proceedings of the 1991 National Conference of the Irrigation and Drainage Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers at Honolulu, Hawaii (Ritter, 1991) and the second the International Workshop on The Application of Mathematical Modelling for the Improvement of Irrigation Canal Operation, held at Montpellier, France, in October 1992 (CEMAGREFAIMI, 1992). We have included information from these occasions as well, mainly in Chapters 7 and 10. As indicated, our target group is the general irrigation practitioner, and not the computer expert or the specialist in a wcular irrigation sub-area. This means that highly sophisticated models at the frontiers of knowledge are excluded. We are looking for computer programs which, in the first place, provide a convenient and user-friendly tool to perform the basic task of a computer: facilitating computations. Existing knowledge may be built around this core to deepen insight, to teach and learn, to facilitate designs, to monitor, to analyze and manage operations, and to answer "what if" questions, thus adding aspects of modelling and simulation. This publication, and the software discussed in it, is thus meant for people working in the field of irrigation who are e.g. (i) dealing with applied research, (ii) junior lecturers and students in colleges and universities, and other instructors, (iii) general design engineers, and (iv) irrigation consultants. We suppose that such practitioners have a keen interest in the use of microcomputers as a tool in their profession, not only to facilitate such common jobs as writing scientific reports, but also for analyzing research data or historical records, planning irrigation schemes, solving design and operational problems. Additionally, computer use as a tool for education and training is clearly within our scope. The text is written from the irrigationer's view and not from a computer science angle. Although the reader need not be a computer expert, a basic understanding of IBM compatible microcomputers and common peripheral devices working under MS-DOS would be useful, and we suppose that a notion of general application software for word processing, spreadsheets and databases is present. Any programming knowledge (in Basic, Fortran, Pascal, etc.) is not required. Apart from the mentioned limitations (irrigation, target group), the current inventory emphasizes on readily available software. This primarily refers to the price. A program costing US $ 5000 or much more is not normally readily available to our target group. There Seems little use in discussing or demonstrating a package that nobody can afford. This means that the program should be roughly public domain software: either free or CHAPTER I 3 available at a nominal fee for copying, postage and handling. In the inventory, we have mentioned some of these expensive programs, but they have not been tested. Another aspect of availability is that many programs are lying somewhere on a shelf, and although a publication may have been written about it, they are not publicly available. We may refer to them, but could not evaluate these either. This inventory is not complete. Not only because of the limited time and budget available, which means that we could not read everything or visit or write to every prospective institution or person, even if we would be aware of them. But also because it would be impossible to wait until we are satisfied that we have covered all there is: new material is being developed almost daily. Also, rigorous and systematic testing and evaluation of the mentioned programs (and others) could be undertaken at a later stage, as a further development. The general idea is to set the ball rolling. ILRI would thus welcome any advice on errors and omissions, so that a possible future version can be more complete and thereby more useful to our readers. Finally, the inventory concentrates on bringing together readily available programs. The brief testing of the programs was primarily aimed at user-oriented aspects like their operability, usability and general user-friendliness.