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ISSN:

Irrigation and Drainage Systems Engineering

The International Open Access

Irrigation and Drainage Systems Engineering

Executive Editors

Daniele De Wrachien

State University of Milan, Italy

Frank T.C. Tsai

Louisiana State University, LA

Bahaa Khalil

McGill University, Canada

Salme Timmusk

Uppsala BioCenter, SLU

YU Jing-quan

Zhejiang University, China

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Irrigation & Drainage Systems Engineering

Scholtz et al., Irrigat Drain Sys Engg 2012, 1:1

http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/idse.1000e101

Open AccessEditorial

Volume 1 Issue 1 1000e101Irrigat Drain Sys Engg

ISSN: IDSE, an open access journal

A Systems View towards More Sustainable Irrigation DesignRichard V. Scholtz*, Eric S. McLamore and Wendell A. Porter

Agricultural & Biological Engineering Department, University of Florida, USA

*Corresponding author: Richard V. Scholtz III, Agricultural & Biological

Engineering Department, University of Florida, USA, E-mail: rscholtz@u.edu

Received March 08, 2012; Accepted March 10, 2012; Published March 12, 2012

Citation: Scholtz RV, McLamore ES, Porter WA (2012) A Systems View towards

More Sustainable Irrigation Design. Irrigat Drain Sys Engg 1:e101. doi:10.4172/

idse.1000e101

Copyright: 2012 Scholtz RV, et al. This is an open-access article distributedunder the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits

unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the

original author and source are credited.

Tere are exceedingly ew human activities that are sustainable.

Our societies today are based on the utilization o resources, where the

overwhelming majority o these resources are either nonrenewable or

at least very slow to be replenished. Tere may be water everywhere,

but not every drop is easily accessible or our use. Tere is an

abundance o untapped energy, with over 1.57 ZW-hr/yr solar energy

striking the upper atmosphere; approximately 74% is transmitted

within the atmosphere [1-3]. Currently there is about 12.4 PW-hr/yr

o solar radiation induced renewable resource consumption capacity

(or less than 0.0008% o the total available); and the total energy

consumption (rom all sources), 159 PW-hr/yr, is only around 0.01%

o what is available solely rom solar energy within the atmosphere[4]. With cheap and abundant energy, there would be no water quality

or quantity problems. o date, accessible energy is neither cheap

nor abundant enough to limit water borne problems in either the

developed or developing world. Tis requires engineers, designers and

managers to take a more deliberate view o the system to be developed.

Right now, as a society in whole we are ailing to do much more than

implementing a patchwork o temporary solutions to our growing

problems [5]. Sustainability requires designers to consider the eective

and aective parameters which govern long term system eciency;

oversight o sociological aspects (e.g., employment, awareness,

stakeholder acceptance) oen leads to system ailure [6].

Ultimately, irrigation systems need to be selected and designed on

a new paradigm, a total system cost approach. Te true costs associatedwith new systems are oen boiled down to the tangible xed and

variable system outlays. In many cases, alternative decision metrics

are employed, but there are times this ails to adequately account or

ostensibly intangible costs that are necessary to be both competitive and

responsible. Tis problem is compounded when water is undervalued,

or the true costs associated with the withdrawal are obscured, deerred,

or even subsidized.

Sustainable water/energy technologies which can reliably

supplement existing inrastructure should be developed based on

systems level thinking, and should be easily integrated into existing

systems without creating new challenges. Te National Aeronautics

and Space Administration (NASA) uses a tool, the Equivalent SystemMass (ESM), to evaluate seemingly divergent complex systems on a

side by side basis [7,8]. While this method could be used to directly

evaluate dierent irrigation system proposals, an Equivalent System

Cost (ESC) metric would be more appropriate. Tis simple tool

provides a ramework or considering the unctional, economic, social,

and ecological aspects o a given technology. On the ace, it simply

could be dened by

,C ap it al Op era ti on al So ci et al A ff ect ua l E ff ec tua l ESC C C C C S= + + + (1)

Where ESCis the equivalent system cost, the Cterms represent the

costs, and S is the savings. However, the complexity lies in how each

term itsel is dened (see Savings example to ollow). Te ESC metric

would contain the standard are o capital costs (including cost orinrastructure, equipment, water rights/permits, interest on borrowed

capital, insurance, taxation, depreciation, etc.) and operational

costs (including costs or energy costs, labor, chemicals, scheduling/

management services, transportation, maintenance, etc.), but would

also include societal and other system impact costs as well as eectual

savings.

Societal costs are those indirect costs associated with the level o

society strie that can be inherent with the application o technology.

Tese costs can include but are not limited to workorce transport

costs, although this may also include the regional industrial/economic

impact o workorce, resource allocation, and/or added social unrest

associated with training and education.

Aectual costs would be those indirect costs due environmentalimpacts a given system can have on the local ecosystem. Tese costs

can include the devaluation o land over time due to soil salinization,

the infuence o perched water tables, the added costs o contaminate

runo mitigation, the increase in water exportation, and the like.

Eectual savings are the indirect perceived benets o a system.

Such savings can come rom decrease in exportation costs, increasing

regional sustainability and transportation cost reduction. An example

might be the use o micro irrigation in a water-limited environment,

where the savings could be determined by

Effectual

VS WUE P

A=

(2)

where the eectual savings can be determined rom the product o

the increase in water use eciency, WUE, the commodity price, P,

the volume o water saved, V, the application eciency , divided

over the additional land water could be applied over, A. Complexity

is introduced rom nonlinear unctions, like in this case the water use

eciency

savedVWUEA

=

(3)

which is a unction o the additional applied depth, but also rom the

denition o parameters like the commodity price. Te commodity

price could be simply the market price, a unction o the energy stored

in the crop, or could also incorporate reduced transportation costs or

the commodity.

Te societal, eectual and eectual components are by their nature

somewhat nebulous and thereore guidance or rameworks should

be established or use by the design team. A suggested ramework is

http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/idse.1000e101http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/idse.1000e101http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/idse.1000e101http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/idse.1000e101

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Citation: Scholtz RV, McLamore ES, Porter WA (2012) A Systems View towards More Sustainable Irrigation Design. Irrigat Drain Sys Engg 1:e101.

doi:10.4172/idse.1000e101

Page 2 of 12

Volume 1 Issue 1 1000e101Irrigat Drain Sys Engg

ISSN: IDSE, an open access journal

provided in Figure 1, where the design team rst determines the needs

and design criteria. Next the designers examine which costs should be

integrated; then how those costs should be determined. An iterative

cost evaluation process should be implemented to test the ecacy o

the assumed cost structure, ideally against a known similar example.

Upon completion o the testing phase, each system alternative should

be analyzed orm which a selection could be made. A ull system cost

evaluation ollows the ull system design, as does a nal system costreview aer implementation o the designed system. Tis allows or

data reporting and incorporation o learned outcomes in uture designs.

Bear in mind that not all systems will have drastically dierent cost

components beyond traditional ones o capital and operational, but

then this would tend to bolster the system selection process regardless.

Also, each component will vary, as does water availability and quality,

on a regional basis. In many instances the global systems view is no

dierent than what has been taught or many years, the dierence lies

in codiying a structure that helps students and uture proessional to

use those tools. Ultimately the incorporation o the intangibles into the

selection analysis may neither be ully substantiated or very rigorous,

rom its very nature, but the incorporation will move engineersand designers down the path o learning to be more innovative and

sustainable.

References

1. Kopp G, Lean JL (2011) A New, Lower Value of Total Solar Irradiance:

Evidence and Climate Signicance. Geophys Res Lett 38: L01706.

2. Ahrens TJ (Ed) (1995) Global Earth Physics: A Handbook of physical Constants

AGU Ref Shelf, vol. 1, 376 pp., AGU, Washington, DC.

3. Allen RG, Pereira LS, Raes D, Smith M (1998) Crop evapotranspiration:

Guidelines for computing crop requirements. Irrigation and Drainage Paper No.

56, FAO, Rome, Italy.

4. Conti J, Holtberg P (2011) International Energy Outlook 2011. Department of

Energy, US Energy Information Administration, Washington, DC.

5. Beddoe R, Costanza R, Farley J, Garza E, Kent J, et al. (2009) Overcoming

systemic roadblocks to sustainability: the evolutionary redesign of worldviews,

institutions, and technologies. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106: 2483-2489.

6. Pahl-Wostl C (2002) Towards sustainability in the water sectorthe importance

of human actors and processes of social learning. Aquat Sci 64: 394411.

7. Levri JA, Vaccari DA, Drysdale AE (2000) Theory and Application of the

Equivalent System Mass Metric, International Conference on Environmental

Systems, Paper No. 2000-01-2395.

8. Drysdale AE, Hanford AJ (2002) Advanced Life Support Research and

Technology Development Metric - Fiscal Year 2001, NASA Johnson Space

Center: Crew and Thermal Systems Division. Houston, TX.

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Problem

Statement

Cost Factor

Modification

Test Evaluationpass

fail

Cost Function

And Parameter

Determination

Systems

Evaluation

System

Evaluation

System

System Review

Incorporation

Implementation

System

System Design

Selection

Determination

Figure 1: Suggested framework for implementing the ESC.

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