HYDRAULIC STUDY ON MEDIA FILTERS USING LOW-QUALITY WATER FOR COTTON IRRIGATION

Abstract

All field experiments were carried out in the experimental farms at Sarapium Forest, Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation in “Sarapium”, Ismailia Governorate, at 30˚51 ̏43 N, 32˚32 ̏ 70 E. The main objective of this study: In this study trying to find non-conventional solutions to compensate severe shortage of water by using treated wastewater and study effect on performance of irrigation systems, and to study estimates the effect of using treated wastewater on the cotton growth, quantity and quality. Experimental treatments. The first experiment for filtration performance designed as a split-plot with three replications. Two media depths (50 cm and 70 cm) were selected for the main plots while the different operation times (0, 25, 50, 75 and 100h) were selected for sub-plots with three replications. The second experiment to irrigate cotton using treated wastewater. The main plots involved two plant distributions (Mutual and Opposite) and the sub-plots involved the three types of emitters namely: online 4 l/h compensative, online 4 l/h non-compensative and built-in 4 l/h-30cm non-compensative. The main results: Increasing media filtration depth from 50 to 70 cm has led to decrease the filtration flowrate with increasing pressure losses, biological oxygen demand (BOD5) and total suspended solids (TSS). The filtration flowrate decreased by increasing operation time from 0 to 100 but pressure losses, BOD5 and TSS was increased.