Modeling wind drift and evaporation losses during sprinkler irrigation in arid areas (case of Touggourt - Algeria)

Abstract In recent years, agriculture development in South-eastern Algeria progressed rapidly which increased the demand for agricultural products. Given that this region is characterized by hard agro-climatic conditions, irrigation seems to be a necessary factor for ensuring optimal development and high agricultural production. Like many irrigation technics widely used, sprinkler irrigation performance was considerably affected by these conditions, mainly evaporation, which causes water losses. This study aims to propose an adequate mathematical model predicting wind drift and evaporation losses under different weather conditions resume by the complex indicator of climatic intensity (ɸ). Results showed that complex indicators of climatic intensity, were significant factors affecting the wind drift and evaporation losses, puissance relationship between wind drift and evaporation losses, and complex indicators of climatic intensity, obtained model are adopted can be useful tools in the determination of the overall losses in terms of environmental conditions (air temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed). Totally 25 measure samples were used for training the model, and 15 measure samples for testing and validation of the model. The developed model for the WDEL modeling shows high good performance with a coefficient of determination (R2) = 0.808, mean squared error (RMSE) = 3.39%, and Mean Absolute Error MAE = 8.41%.