Abstract:
Existing data on topography, climate, soil, land use pattern, water
availability, agricultural practices, investment costs and socioeconomic
practices are investigated and the irrigation suitability criteria is defined
based on these variables. Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) is developed to
investigate the terrain feature of the basin from the digitized Contour map of
the basin and the variation in elevation as well as slope is evaluated.
Stream net work characterization, mapping soil and land use units using GIS
environment and defining their suitability for irrigation as well as crop
development with respect to the prevailing conditions has been made.
Super-imposing all these attributes in the GIS environment and identifying
potentially suitable areas for crop development , suggesting appropriate
method of irrigation, compiling georeferenced suitability data base(slope,
soil, land use, water) for irrigation are among the main treatments
undertaken during the study.
Large portion of Gelana and the lower delta of Hare, Kulifo and Bilate are
characterized with suitable soil units having good inherent fertility and high
moisture holding capacity. Besides, these areas are with very flat land slope
as observed from the DEMs which falls below 10 % and are suitable for
surface irrigation.
The capacity of low flow as well as 80%, 90% and 95 percentage time of
exceedence flow of the available surface water in the respective sub basins
