JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

Emitter clogging for using agricultural wastewater increases the operating costs and reduces the motivation of farmers. The new method to reduce the emitters clogging is the use of a Merus ring that does not have the problems of chlorination and pickling methods, such as pollution and high cost. Due to the importance of agricultural wastewater use, this study investigated the emitters clogging and the effect of Merus ring on the emitter's efficiency in a trickle irrigation system. The treatments including irrigation water (well water and wastewater) and modified water (irrigation with Merus ring and irrigation without Merus ring), as the main factor and the emitters type treatment including Irritec (D₁), Corona (D₂), Axios (D₃), Netafim (D₄), Polirood (D₅), and Paya (D₆) as the sub treatments were performed in three replications. The results showed that the agricultural wastewater caused the emitters clogging in irrigation water and modified water treatments, but over time, the Merus ring had a positive effect on the evaluation parameters of the emitters. For agricultural wastewater, in the first and last irrigation periods, the average discharge of emitters with the Merus ring was 0.05 and 0.33 Liter per hours, respectively, more than the treatment without the Merus ring. The uniformity coefficient of emitters in the first and last irrigation periods, in well water with the Merus ring, was 0.31%and 6.67%, respectively, more than that in the well water without the Merus ring. Also, the uniformity coefficient of emitters in the first and last irrigation periods in agricultural wastewater with the Merus ring was 0.85% and 12.10%, respectively, more than that in agricultural wastewater without the Merus ring. At the end of irrigation period, the results showed that Netafim and Axios had the best and weakest efficiency, respectively. In general, the emitters used in the treatment of well water with the Merus ring had the highest discharge and the emitters used in the treatment of wastewater without the Merus ring had the lowest discharge.

In this study, the temporal and spatial variation of snow depth over the mountainous region of Zagros, in the western Iran, for the period 1979–2010 was investigated for the cold season when the probability of snow occurrences was high. For this purpose, daily gridded snow depth data relative to Era-Interim/land were retrieved from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and used for spatiotemporal analysis of snow in the region. Furthermore, monthly maximum, minimum and mean air temperature relative to the weather stations distributed over the region were also used to investigate the relationship between snow depth and air temperature variability in the region. In each grid point, the rate of temporal changes in the snow depth was estimated using the Sen’s slope estimator, while the modified Mann-Kendall Test was applied to assess if the change identified was statistically significant. The results showed that in almost all of the studied months, especially February and March, the snow depth was significantly reduced in the region, which was statistically significant at 5% significant level. Unlike the observed statistically significant decreasing trend in the depth snow in the region, a significant increase in the maximum, minimum and average temperature was observed for all the studied months and the stations. The result suggested that the observed decrease in the snow depth in the region was related to the increasing trend in the temperature during the study period, which could be attributed to the global warming and climate change.

Changes in soil infiltration cause changes in irrigation efficiencies; therefore, estimating it in calculating irrigation efficiencies provides a more accurate estimate of irrigation performance indicators. In a study conducted on ARC2-7 farm in Amirkabir agro-industry in the 2010-2011 crop year, during four irrigations; two furrows were selected in terms of uniform infiltration and variable infiltration with a length of 140 and a width of 1.83 m. In the furrow assuming uniform infiltration two flume type II, at the beginning and end of it, were installed and the cumulative infiltration was determined by the volume balance method. The furrow with variable conditions was divided into four sections by installing five flumes. By examining the spatial variations of the mean cumulative infiltration, its value decreased from the first to the fourth section for the first irrigation by 15% and for the subsequent irrigations by 13%. Temporal changes of cumulative infiltration decreased by 27 and 30% for the first and second sections and by 26% for the third and fourth sections. An 11% increase in the average weight of the aggregate diameter and a 7% decrease in bulk density indicate physical changes in the soil. Surface runoff losses increased from 8 to 18.77% in the furrow assuming uniform infiltration and from 10.91 to 19.77% in the furrow with variable infiltration, and application efficiency decreased by 6%.