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Irrigation may have both positive and negative impacts on the environment. To be sustainable, irrigation must avoid the negative impacts.
The positive aspect of irrigation is that, by intensifying food and forage production in the most favourable lands, it can allow a country to reduce excessive pressure on marginal lands now under rain-fed cultivation or grazing.
The potentially negative environmental impacts of irrigation development may occur off-site as well as on-site. The off-site effects may take place upstream of the land to be developed, as where a river is to be dammed for the purpose of supplying irrigation water. Another set of problems may be generated downstream of the irrigated area by the disposal of excess water that may contain harmful concentrations of salts, organic wastes, pathogenic organisms and agrochemical residues.
Of most direct concern are the potential on-site impacts. Irrigated lands, especially in river valleys prone to high water-table conditions, typically require drainage. Otherwise, they are subject to the twin scourges of waterlogging and salinization. Because groundwater drainage is a complex, exacting and expensive operation (often more expensive than the initial development of irrigation itself), there is a temptation to start new irrigation projects while ignoring the need for drainage or delaying its installation until it is actually needed. The trouble is that, by the time the need for drainage becomes inescapable, the cost of implementing it may be prohibitive.
At the very least, irrigators in each area should monitor the position of the water-table as it tends to rise, by means of observation wells (piezometers). Sampling the water in such wells will allow monitoring of the quality of the groundwater towards which the leaching fraction of irrigation water percolates. Such monitoring can provide an early warning of the eventual danger of salinization, and can guide irrigation practice towards minimizing that danger. Although small-scale irrigation development is less likely to cause waterlogging and salinization than large-scale development, the danger of land degradation should never be ignored.
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Irrigation
Sources of Irrigation
Application of Irrigation water
Purpose of Irrigation
Instruments and implements of Irrigation
Irrigation Management
Irrigation and environment
Pollution and Irrigation +
Irrigation and Climate Resilience +
Environmental Aspects of Irrigation +
Environmental Impacts of Irrigation +
Green Lawn Irrigation +
Safe Use of Waste Water in Irrigation +
Organic Agriculture +
Soil Health +
Soil Health Management +
Quality of Irrigation Water +
Capacity Development
Drainage
- Irrigation pipe aqueduct, Pipe aqueduct, Pipe flume
- Syphon, Inverted siphon, Irrigation syphon, Canal syphon, Syphon superpassage
- Lift irrigation area, or Lift area
- Continuous-flow irrigation
- Night-storage irrigation system
- Intermittent-flow irrigation system
- Irrigation return flow
- Farm irrigation structures
- Collective irrigation system
- Individual irrigation system
- Perennial irrigation
- Seasonal irrigation
- Supplemental irrigation
- Systematic irrigation
- Flow irrigation, or Gravity irrigation
- Pumping irrigation
- Inundation irrigation
- Irrigation from a storage reservoir
- Irrigation from groundwater
- Irrigation by flood water spreading
- Sailab irrigation (a term used in India and Pakistan)
- Micro basin irrigation
- Irrigation by spreading
- Irrigation
- Irrigation interval
- Irrigation dose
- Ideal irrigation interval
- Irrigation season
- Fall irrigation (USA)
- Winter irrigation (USA)
- Early irrigation (USA)
- Sub-irrigation
- Overirrigation
- Irrigation canals
- Surface irrigation
- Flood irrigation
- Basin method of irrigation, or Irrigation by beds
- Flush irrigation
- Spate irrigation
- Border irrigation, or Border method
- Flooding from ditches, or (contour ditch irrigation)
- Corrugation irrigation
- Furrow irrigation
- Surge irrigation
- Duration of irrigation
- Secondary flow, Two discharge, or Cutback irrigation
- Primary flow irrigation (single discharge)
- Wave irrigation
- Irrigation through buried drains, Irrigation-drainage, or Vallenhove process
- Irrigation by nappe control, or Ramspol process
- Selection of irrigation parameters
- Sprinkler irrigation
- Irrigation terminal
- Irrigation device
- Perforated pipe sprinkler irrigation
- Irrigation sprinkler machine
- Centre pivot irrigation
- Lateral-move irrigation machine sprinkler method
- Solid set irrigation
- Piloting of irrigation
- Irrigation cycle
- Micro-irrigation, Localized irrigation, Drip irrigation, Trickle irrigation
- Mobile micro-irrigation
- Pulse irrigation
- Surface drip irrigation
- Buried drip irrigation
- Drip irrigation functioning by propulsions
- Micro-irrigation network
- Micro-irrigation nozzle-line
- Irrigation dose
- Semi-automatic control (of irrigation)
- Micro-irrigation system with hydraulic sequential operation
- Automatic control (of irrigation)
- Porous wall microirrigation tubing
- Proportional irrigation pump
- Irrigation water
- Irrigation water requirement, Irrigation need
- Net irrigation requirement, Farm delivery requirement, or Delta at farm
- Crop irrigation requirement
- Diversion requirement, Gross irrigation requirement, or Delta at head of main canal
- Optimum irrigation requirements
- Irrigation efficiency, Farm irrigation efficiency, Farm delivery efficiency, Water conveyance and delivery efficiency, or Overall efficiency
- Irrigation water-requirement
- Subirrigation
- Surge irrigation
- Irrigation water use efficiency
- Unit irrigation efficiency
- Economic efficiency of irrigation
- Irrigation efficiency
- Agronomic efficiency of irrigation or Agronomic productivity of irrigation
- Degree of durability of irrigation
- Programmed irrigation
- Fully automatic irrigation system
- Irrigation development project or system
- Environmental protection
- Environmental quality
- Environmental agents
- Environmental stress
- Environmental geology
- Environmental region
- Environmental change
- Environmentally sensitive area
- Environmental parameters
- Environmental tracer
- Environmental resources
- Environmental pollution
- Environmental fate
- Environmental elements
- Environmental criteria
- Environmental analysis
- Environmental standards
- Environmental statement
- Environmental assessment
- Environmental review
- Environmental planning and design
- Environmental forecasting
- Environmental monitoring
- Environmental surveillance
- Environmental fragility
- Environmental impact
- Environmental impact analysis
- Environmental quality standards
- Implementation plan (environmental)
- Irrigation
- Surface irrigation
- Basin Irrigation
- Overhead irrigation
- Sub‑irrigation
- Microirrigation
- Trickle irrigation
- Drip irrigation
- Total irrigation
- Supplemental irrigation
- Preplant irrigation
- Organic irrigation
- Conjunctive irrigation planning
- Irrigation project
- Irrigation potential
- Environmental planning
- Assessment of irrigation charges
- Irrigation cess
- Water rate, Water charge, Irrigation rate, or Irrigation assessment
- Primary benefits, Primary effects, Direct irrigation benefits, or Direct irrigation effects
- Secondary benefits, Secondary effects, Indirect irrigation benefits, or Indirect irrigation effects
- Economic value of unit of irrigation water
- Revenue value of a unit of irrigation water
