If you haven't already, why don't you take a look at the
picture of a traditional
spray-irrigation system. Compare it to this picture. Pretty
similar, right? This is a picture of a type of center-pivot
irrigation system that does not spray water through the air
onto crops, though. It is
called a Low Energy Precision Application (LEPA) center-pivot system. Instead
of high-power spray units, this system has small water sprayers hanging
down from a large water-carrying pipe above. At the
bottom of each pipe, very close to the ground,
is a nozzle that gently sprays water onto the crops.
Because the nozzle is so close to the ground, you lose a lot less water to evaporation than you would with a traditional spray-irrigation system. Plus, electricity is saved because it takes less to use these low-powered systems. These systems allow more than 90-percent of the water pumped to be used by the crop -- pretty efficient!
Measuring water
Human's influence
Water use
Water Science home page
U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/irlepa.html
Page Contact Information: Howard Perlman
Page Last Modified: Friday, 07-Nov-2008 15:44:22 EST
