Use of Scaling Method to Estimate Infiltration in Variable and Fixed Alternate Furrow Irrigation

A relatively large number of field measurements are required to accommodate the spatial and temporal variability of the soil infiltration characteristics needed to express field conditions. Scaling is a recently-developed method that reduces the data needed to determine infiltration parameters. The present study evaluated the use of scaling to estimate infiltration parameters for variable alternate furrow irrigation and fixed alternate furrow irrigation methods that uses a single advance time and model infiltration curve to determine infiltration parameters. Field data from seven irrigation events during the maize growing season in clay loam soil in Karaj, Iran was used to evaluate scaling for both irrigation methods. The relative error for estimation of total infiltration was 1.44% to 20.03% for fixed and 0.48% to 13.80% for variable alternate furrow irrigation. No significant difference was observed between the measured and scaled data for infiltration.