Irrigation System Evaluation Program

Gila Gravity Main Canal

Evaluation team

The Cal Poly Irrigation Training & Research Center (ITRC) software and procedure for the rapid evaluation of drip and microirrigation systems has been widely used in California by mobile laboratories, consultants, and others.

The ITRC rapid procedure uses limited sampling to estimate a field’s distribution uniformity (DU) with about 1 person/day of field work. Programs that use this procedure are popular with farmers because the evaluations clearly show the locations and relative magnitudes of problems due to plugging and pressure differences between emitters. The evaluation procedure also defines the relative importance of various problems, plus it gives an estimate of the field DU.

For more information about the ITRC Irrigation Evaluation program, ITRC has additional resources available on this website:

Irrigation Evaluation Database, available for download for six types of irrigation systems
Summary Graphs of DU data since 1997
Irrigation System Evaluation Short Courses both online and on-site
ITRC Paper No. P 2008-005: "Accuracy of Global Microirrigation Distribution Uniformity Estimates" by Styles et al
External Paper: Burt, C.M. (2004). "Rapid Field Evaluation of Drip and Microspray Distribution Uniformity." Irrig. Drain. Syst., (18) 257-297
ITRC Paper No. P 1997-003: "Irrigation Performance Measures: Efficiency and Uniformity" by Burt et al
ITRC Paper No. P 1995-005: "Identification and Quantification of Efficiency and Uniformity Components" by Burt et al