Open Access ISSN: 2168-9768 Irrigation and Drainage Systems Engineering Research Article Volume 10:7,, 2021 Irrigation Efficiency Performance Assessment of Modern Spate Irrigation Scheme: In Case of Kobo Woreda, North Wollo, Ethiopia Abstract Spate irrigation is form of water management that is unique to arid and semi- arid area where floods are diverted in to cultivated crops by constructing diversion weir across the river. The general objective of the study was Assessments of irrigation efficiency Gobu-I and Gobu-II modern spate irrigation schemes. To achieve the study primary data were collected which includes measurement of soil moisture contents before and after irrigation, measurement of field discharge. The parameters used to compare the efficiencies at the farm field levels were application, storage and distribution uniformity efficiency. The application efficiencies of Gobu-I was 62.75, 72.61 and 77.56% and for Gobu-II was 57.88, 66.12 and 70.14%. The storage efficiencies of Gobu-I schemes were 89.06, 88.71 and 87.8% and for Gobu-II schemes were 90.97, 89.81 and 88.1%. Distribution efficiency for Gobu-I scheme were 92.65, 87.67 and 96.38% and For Gobu-II schemes were 85.05, 89.95 and 95.03% in the head, middle and tail field respectively. Application efficiencies of both schemes were not good because of it’s under limit but storage and distribution efficiencies were good. By strengthening the capacity of DA’s and farmer’s frequent evaluation and follow-up are critical to maintain sustainable performance of the modern spate irrigation schemes. Keywords: Field Evaluation • Irrigation Performance Efficiency • Modern Spate Irrigation • Soil Moisture • Gobu-I and II Mohammed Jemal Endre 1 *, Kassa Tadele 2 and Dawud Temam 3 1 Hydraulic and Water Resources Department, Institute of Technology, University of Gondar, P.O.BOX 196, Gondar, Ethiopia 2 Director General, Transport Construction Design S. Company,Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 3 Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Jimma Institute of Technology, Jimma University, P.O. Box 378, Jimma, Ethiopia *Address for Correspondence: Mohammed Jemal Endre, Hydraulic and Water Resources Department, Institute of Technology, University of Gondar, P.O.BOX 196, Gondar, Ethiopia, Tel : +251918314859, E- mail: amx09eng@gmail.com Copyright: © 2021 Mohammed Jemal Endre. This is an open-access article distributed under 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. Received 26 May 2021; Accepted 22 July 2021; Published 30 July 2021 Introduction General Irrigation is the process of supplying water, in addition to natural precipitation, to field crops, orchards, vineyards, or other cultivated plants. Irrigation water is applied to ensure that water available in the soil is sufficient to meet crop water need. Much of the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country very often receive insufficient and/or unpredictable rain. However, considering the current situation with growing population pressure in the highland areas and a rapidly declining natural resource base has necessitated irrigated agriculture and in line with this irrigation is given prime attention on the country’s development agenda [1]. Spate irrigation is diversion of flood water by construction weir across in modern on the ephemeral river for irrigation purposes. Under the guise of ‘modernization’ extensive civil engineering investments have been made in the head works of spate irrigation systems in Yemen and to a lesser degree in Morocco, Pakistan, Eritrea and Ethiopia. Also in some systems a sedimentation pond was part of the head works, designed to avoid coarse sediments going into the command area. Because such modernized head works are costly, in many cases, a traditional system with multiple off-takes from the river was replaced by a single diversion structures supplying a newly-built long flood channel [2]. Poor management in modern spate irrigation water is one of the principal reasons for low water efficiency in irrigation systems. However due to water resource become scarce, more emphasis is given to efficiency use of irrigation water for maximum economic return and water resources sustainability. This requires measuring and evaluating how efficiently water is extracted from a water source to produce crop yield. Materials and Methods General Description of the Study Area The study was caring out at two modern spate irrigation schemes in the Amhara National Regional State (ANRS) specifically in North Wollo Administrative Zone (NWAZ) of Kobo Rural Woreda. The land use and the vegetation pattern of the study area are greatly influenced by its semi-arid to arid or dry Kolla (Dry hot) agro-climatic conditions. The rainfall in the area is uni-modal rainfall pattern; although bimodal-like rainfall but with very little and unreliable belg (spring) rainfall exist in the peak mountainous areas of the woreda. The main season; locally referred to as Kremt (summer), spreads from July to August and this are the period when much of the rainfall events occur. The minor season, the Belg (spring) happens from February to April. The mean annual rainfall that the project area received is 499.5mm. The dominant agriculture practiced in this area is rained agriculture, mainly supplemented by spate irrigation. • Gobu-I and II Modern spate irrigation scheme: Gobu-I and II spate irrigation project is situated in North Wollo Zone Kobo woreda along the border of Tigray region specifically in Amaya Kebele, 12 km from kobo town along with main road Kobo to Alamata having dry weather road to the head work site. The geographical location of the Gobu-I is located at longitude: 1352399.8040 UTM m, latitude: 559561.1430 UTM m and 1589.47m Elevation and the headwork site of Gobu-II is located at Latitude: 561408.005 UTM m, Longitude: 1354474.0394 UTM m and Altitude: 1531.37m. Even though the two spate irrigation scheme is designed on no perennial river, the scheme is using both spate during Belg or spring time and supplementary irrigation in summer until the river flow ends after the main rainy season. Although the project area of this spate irrigation scheme is around kobo town the source of water is from upstream catchment flood flow (i.e., Gidan woreda peak highlands) which shown in (Figure 1). • Crop production: Gobu-I : Different crops were grown on the command