IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/agiwat/v210y2018icp96-107.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The performance and behavior of land drainage systems and their impact on field scale hydrology in an increasingly volatile climate

Author

Listed:
  • Tuohy, P.
  • O’ Loughlin, J.
  • Peyton, D.
  • Fenton, O.

Abstract

Escalations in rainfall intensity, both in terms of volume and frequency are increasing the volatility associated with grassland agriculture on poorly drained soils. The principal mechanism of reducing this volatility is by means of land drainage; however the efficacy of drainage systems is widely variable and has not been fully quantified. The excavation of soil test pits and a corresponding examination of the soil profile enables bespoke land drainage system design. Across heterogeneous soil-scapes this leads to variations to both groundwater and shallow drainage designs. In the present study we examine the performances of 9 site-specific drainage systems (5 groundwater and 4 shallow drainage designs), during a high rainfall period (01/10/2015–31/05/2016) in terms of response times (start, peak and lag times), discharge characteristics (peak flow rate, total discharge, flashiness index, discharge hydrographs) and water table control capacity. Response times were not affected by drainage system or drainage design type, showing similar responses despite variation in soil types where appropriate drainage systems are installed. Total discharge (1098.4 vs. 189.6 m3/ha) and peak flow rate (51.0 vs. 16.8 m3/ha/h) were significantly higher in groundwater designs relative to shallow alternatives. Groundwater drainage designs generally maintained a deeper mean water table depth (0.82 m) than shallow designs (0.53 m) during the study period. The functional capacity of each land drainage system was inherently different. The comparison of such systems highlights contrasting behaviors of individual drainage systems and drainage design types, which is dictated largely by the hydraulic capacity of the soil within their catchment and their connectivity to different water bodies (groundwater versus perched water). All systems reduced the overall period of waterlogging and improved the conditions for both the production and utilization of the grasslands they drain, although temporal variations in agronomic parameters are likely to be more pronounced in shallow designs.

Suggested Citation

  • Tuohy, P. & O’ Loughlin, J. & Peyton, D. & Fenton, O., 2018. "The performance and behavior of land drainage systems and their impact on field scale hydrology in an increasingly volatile climate," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 96-107.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:210:y:2018:i:c:p:96-107
    DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2018.07.033
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377418311247
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.agwat.2018.07.033?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tuohy, P. & Humphreys, J. & Holden, N.M. & Fenton, O., 2016. "Runoff and subsurface drain response from mole and gravel mole drainage across episodic rainfall events," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 129-139.
    2. Rodgers, M. & Mulqueen, J. & McHale, J., 2003. "A model study of mole drain spacing and performance," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 33-42, April.
    3. Smit, H.J. & Metzger, M.J. & Ewert, F., 2008. "Spatial distribution of grassland productivity and land use in Europe," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 98(3), pages 208-219, October.
    4. Kahlown, M.A. & Ashraf, M. & Zia-ul-Haq, 2005. "Effect of shallow groundwater table on crop water requirements and crop yields," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 24-35, July.
    5. Youngs, E. G., 1985. "An analysis of the effect of the vertical fissuring in mole-drained soils on drain performances," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 301-311, March.
    6. Sloan, Brandon P. & Basu, Nandita B. & Mantilla, Ricardo, 2016. "Hydrologic impacts of subsurface drainage at the field scale: Climate, landscape and anthropogenic controls," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 1-10.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Byrne, Ian & Healy, Mark Gerard & Fenton, Owen & Tuohy, Patrick, 2023. "Assessment of the hydraulic and filter performance of different drainage stone aggregates to elucidate an optimum size range for use in clay-textured soils," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Singh, Ajay, 2019. "Poor-drainage-induced salinization of agricultural lands: Management through structural measures," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 457-463.
    2. Wu, Zhangsheng & Li, Yue & Wang, Rong & Xu, Xu & Ren, Dongyang & Huang, Quanzhong & Xiong, Yunwu & Huang, Guanhua, 2023. "Evaluation of irrigation water saving and salinity control practices of maize and sunflower in the upper Yellow River basin with an agro-hydrological model based method," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).
    3. Muhammad Amin & Mobushir Riaz Khan & Sher Shah Hassan & Muhammad Imran & Muhammad Hanif & Irfan Ahmad Baig, 2023. "Determining satellite-based evapotranspiration product and identifying relationship with other observed data in Punjab, Pakistan," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 23-39, January.
    4. Lina Peng & Yan Hu & Jiyun Li & Qingyun Du, 2017. "An Improved Evaluation Scheme for Performing Quality Assessments of Unconsolidated Cultivated Land," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-21, July.
    5. Hanjra, Munir A. & Qureshi, M. Ejaz, 2010. "Global water crisis and future food security in an era of climate change," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 365-377, October.
    6. Feng, Genxiang & Zhu, Chengli & Wu, Qingfeng & Wang, Ce & Zhang, Zhanyu & Mwiya, Richwell Mubita & Zhang, Li, 2021. "Evaluating the impacts of saline water irrigation on soil water-salt and summer maize yield in subsurface drainage condition using coupled HYDRUS and EPIC model," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    7. Myrgiotis, Vasileios & Blei, Emanuel & Clement, Rob & Jones, Stephanie K. & Keane, Ben & Lee, Mark A. & Levy, Peter E. & Rees, Robert M. & Skiba, Ute M. & Smallman, Thomas Luke & Toet, Sylvia & Willia, 2020. "A model-data fusion approach to analyse carbon dynamics in managed grasslands," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    8. Benedykt Pepliński & Wawrzyniec Czubak, 2021. "The Influence of Opencast Lignite Mining Dehydration on Plant Production—A Methodological Study," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-29, March.
    9. Liu, Meihan & Paredes, Paula & Shi, Haibin & Ramos, Tiago B. & Dou, Xu & Dai, Liping & Pereira, Luis S., 2022. "Impacts of a shallow saline water table on maize evapotranspiration and groundwater contribution using static water table lysimeters and the dual Kc water balance model SIMDualKc," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 273(C).
    10. Deuss, Kirstin Ella & Almond, Peter C. & Carrick, Sam & Kees, Lawrence John, 2023. "Identification, mapping, and characterisation of a mature artificial mole channel network using ground-penetrating radar," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 288(C).
    11. Wu, Yao & Liu, Tingxi & Paredes, Paula & Duan, Limin & Pereira, Luis S., 2015. "Water use by a groundwater dependent maize in a semi-arid region of Inner Mongolia: Evapotranspiration partitioning and capillary rise," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 222-232.
    12. Wen, Yeqiang & Shang, Songhao & Rahman, Khalil Ur & Xia, Yuhong & Ren, Dongyang, 2020. "A semi-distributed drainage model for monthly drainage water and salinity simulation in a large irrigation district in arid region," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    13. Zhao, Tianxing & Zhu, Yan & Ye, Ming & Yang, Jinzhong & Jia, Biao & Mao, Wei & Wu, Jingwei, 2022. "A new approach for estimating spatial-temporal phreatic evapotranspiration at a regional scale using NDVI and water table depth measurements," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    14. Talebnejad, R. & Sepaskhah, A.R., 2015. "Effect of deficit irrigation and different saline groundwater depths on yield and water productivity of quinoa," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 225-238.
    15. Karimov, Akmal Kh. & Šimůnek, Jirka & Hanjra, Munir A. & Avliyakulov, Mirzaolim & Forkutsa, Irina, 2014. "Effects of the shallow water table on water use of winter wheat and ecosystem health: Implications for unlocking the potential of groundwater in the Fergana Valley (Central Asia)," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 57-69.
    16. Hermans, C.M.L. & Geijzendorffer, I.R. & Ewert, F. & Metzger, M.J. & Vereijken, P.H. & Woltjer, G.B. & Verhagen, A., 2010. "Exploring the future of European crop production in a liberalised market, with specific consideration of climate change and the regional competitiveness," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 221(18), pages 2177-2187.
    17. Gou, Qiqi & Zhu, Yonghua & Horton, Robert & Lü, Haishen & Wang, Zhenlong & Su, Jianbin & Cui, Chenyun & Zhang, Haoqiang & Wang, Xiaoyi & Zheng, Jingyao & Yuan, Fei, 2020. "Effect of climate change on the contribution of groundwater to the root zone of winter wheat in the Huaibei Plain of China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    18. Vincent Pelletier & Jacques Gallichand & Silvio Gumiere & Steeve Pepin & Jean Caron, 2015. "Water Table Control for Increasing Yield and Saving Water in Cranberry Production," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(8), pages 1-18, August.
    19. Benedykt Pepliński, 2021. "External Costs for Agriculture from Lignite Extraction from the Złoczew Deposit," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-27, May.
    20. Fazlullah Akhtar & Bernhard Tischbein & Usman Awan, 2013. "Optimizing Deficit Irrigation Scheduling Under Shallow Groundwater Conditions in Lower Reaches of Amu Darya River Basin," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 27(8), pages 3165-3178, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:210:y:2018:i:c:p:96-107. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.