Economic assessment of an irrigation canal automation and control project

This paper briefly describes the system and techniques used to control the water level at different sections of an irrigation canals in Egypt. The canal has a peak design flow of 87 m³/seconds and is controlled by six major regulating structures. This paper also describes the experience and economic assessment of the implementation of the automation and control system. Implementation of an automatic control system at six main regulators of the main canal was completed in 1994. The economic assessment presented herein indicates that the costs of the system can be justified by improvements in overall irrigation efficiency of 4 to 6% based an irrigation water valued at $6.2 per 1000 M³ interest rates of 4 to 12% and a cost recovery period of 15 years. As the system has only recently been commissioned, increases in overall efficiency of about 10% are considered to be realistically achievable through a continuous operation of the control system. Therefore, this assessment concludes that the system is economically justifiable on the basis of potential improvements to overall irrigation efficiency alone