Effect of drip irrigation frequency on emitter clogging using reclaimed water

• DOI: 10.1007/s00271-015-0461-9
• Publication Date: 2015-02-05T15:23:20Z
• Authors: Bo Zhou; Yunkai Li; Yaoze Liu; Feipeng Xu; Yiting Pei; Zhenhua Wang
• Keywords: 0106 biological sciences; 2. Zero hunger; 01 natural sciences; 6. Clean water

Drip irrigation frequency has important impacts on crop growth, soil moisture, nutrient, salinity and sub- stances' accumulation in the irrigation system as well as drip irrigation emitter clogging. However, previous studies on reasonable drip irrigation frequency merely focused on crop yield and quality, soil water and salinity transporting, neglecting its impact on the high-efficiency operation of the drip irrigation system. Studies on reasonable reclaimed water drip irrigation frequency were more insufficient. There- fore, the drip irrigation emitter clogging experiment using reclaimed water was accomplished in the wastewater treat- ment plant, and then, the effects of different irrigation fre- quencies, including once/2 days (IF 1/2 ), once/4 days (IF 1/4 ), once/8 days (IF1/8) and once/16 days (IF1/16), on dynamic emitters' outflows and biofilms' growth were studied. The results showed that emitter clogging degrees increased with shorter drip irrigation interval, mainly because that dis- charge ratio variation (Dra) and Christiansen uniformity coefficient (CU) both decreased. After the system accumu- latively run 540 h, the smallest Dra and CU were observed in high-frequency drip irrigation treatment (IF 1/2 ) as 30.98