الفهرس 
CHAPTER (1) INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
With the increase of water demand and the impact of climate change, Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation in Egypt (MWRI) launched a plan for using modern irrigation systems in both old and new lands. Using modern irrigation systems requires applying the continuous flow, which in consequence requires well-rehabilitated infrastructure and precise operation of the system. The concern of the current study is the second element, which is the operation of the irrigation system. The operation of the irrigation system still uses the old fashion that depends on maintaining water levels, without calculating water requirements or measuring water supply, which could threat the sustainability of using modern irrigation systems.
The current study developed a mathematical model for distributing the flow inside an irrigation canal network. For applying the model two command areas were chosen, the first command area is the irrigation district of El-Bostan 1 & 2 which represent new lands and is used for the calibration and validation of the model. The second command area is Quesna district, which represents old lands and is used to validate the model
The model uses remote sensing technique to calculate water consumption of different branch canals. Using remote sensing technique in calculating water consumption is the suitable method considering the current situation in Egypt with land fragmentation and free cropping pattern. Water requirement values are calculated based on water consumption values and average irrigation efficiency value. Any additional resources or subtraction inside any branch canal would be defined by the user, and the net flow values at the heads of different canals and at the main points inside the irrigation network are defined based on the summation of the previous values and considering the rotation system (number of opening and closing days of different canals).
The model has three types of results. The first is water requirement values at different points of the irrigation network. The second type of results is the flow at the heads of different branch canals and at the main points in the irrigation network, which is defined as described before. The third type of results is the unsteady flow file for HEC-RAS program. This file should be used with the geometry file to simulate the flow through the irrigation network to make sure that the irrigation network could convey the calculated flow before applying it.
Distributing the flow based on accurate water requirements leads to an increase in water efficiency and achieves equity in water distribution inside the irrigation network.
The model could be a good step in improving water management and moving from operating the system based on maintaining downstream water levels to operating it on volumetric basis, which should help in improving water use efficiency in Egypt.
The study also discusses the required characteristics to apply modern irrigation system.
The study concluded that to successfully apply modern irrigation system and to capture the expected benefits of such application, the operation of the irrigation system should be adapted to be suitable for such application. The success of any irrigation system depends on being demand-based system, which means its ability to deliver water to the user in the time and with the required amount. Achieving such target depends on having rehabilitated irrigation system with precise operation system.