Irrigation Systems & Methods — Interactive Visualizer
Every parameter is teacher-adjustable. Drag inside any 3D view to orbit · scroll to zoom.
How irrigation methods are classified
Water can reach the root zone in four ways — flowing over the soil, sprayed through air, dripped at the plant, or supplied below ground.
Which method fits this field?
Score out of 100 from soil, slope, water, labour, capital, crop and salinity. Bars update live.
What each method costs you in water
| Method | Field application efficiency Ea | Gross depth/day | Stream needed | Water/season (100 d) |
|---|
Gross depth = ETc ÷ Ea · Stream = gross depth × area ÷ operating hours (assumed 8 h/day).
Water advancing down the field
The blue front moves exactly as the volume-balance simulation predicts. Scrub time or press play.
Advance–recession curve & infiltrated depth profile
Wetting pattern across the furrow / border
Sandy soils push water down (narrow, deep bulbs) so furrows must be closer; clays spread water sideways.
Overlapping spray patterns
Sprinklers must overlap: a single circle under-waters its own edge. The floor colour is the depth of water actually landing.
Single-sprinkler profile and the overlap sum
Blue = water from one sprinkler at distance r. Gold = total depth after neighbours overlap. Flat gold line = uniform irrigation.
Discharge and throw both rise with √H, but drop size falls — high pressure with a small nozzle turns the jet into wind-blown mist.
Wetting bulbs under the emitters
Only part of the soil is wetted — that is the whole point of drip, and the reason its efficiency is so high.
Bulb shape by soil, and emitter response to pressure
Same litres of water, five soils. Sand drains down; clay spreads wide. Bulb width sets the maximum emitter spacing.
x = 0 is a perfectly pressure-compensating emitter (flat line — best for sloping fields); x = 1 is a fully turbulent long-path emitter.
The boom sweeps a circle
Outer spans travel much faster and must therefore discharge far more water per metre than the inner ones.
Why the outer nozzles are the big ones
Where the gold curve rises above the red line, water arrives faster than the soil can take it — that is where runoff and wheel-track rutting start.
Water delivered below the surface
Nothing evaporates from a dry surface, and no weeds germinate between the rows — but the wetting bulb must still reach the roots.
Soil profile — bulbs, roots, capillary fringe
When to irrigate, and how much
Same crop, same field, eight methods
| Method | Ea | Gross depth | Water per irrigation | Set time at your stream | Season use (100 d) |
|---|
Bars show water saved per season against wild flooding, for the field area you set.
