Purpose: to develop and substantiate experimentally an algorithm for hydraulic calculation of the minimum permissible distance between hydrometric cross-sections when implementing the slope – area method on the land reclamation canals.
Materials and methods. The design and engineering solution for the original method of determining water flow in the canals of reclamation systems that implements the slope – area method, using the developed algorithm for hydraulic calculation of the main canal parameters is used. Field studies were conducted on the R-3 canal (PK 243 + 80) of the Raigorod Irrigation System. The experimental results were compared with the traditional velocity – area method.
Results. A series of field experiments were conducted on sections of the irrigation canal ranging from 100 to 240 m in length. The dependence of the maximum relative error on the canal section length was revealed. An analytical method has established that the minimum permissible distance between cross-sections for an earth canal is 147 m. For this length, the error of the developed method, which implements the slope – area method, does not exceed 2.9 %, which is significantly lower than the error when using the velocity – area method (5.5 %).
Conclusions. The developed algorithm, including the determination of hydraulic parameters (cross-sectional area, canal width at the open water surface, wetted perimeter, hydraulic radius, and the Chezy velocity coefficient at the cross-sections), opens up prospects for both scientific hydrometric studies and for the practical organization of reliable water metering and water measurement in canals of reclamation systems. A theoretical dependence for determining water flow relative to the length of the measured section with an approximation value of 0.9916, which made it possible to substantiate the minimum permissible distance between cross-sections for open earth canals was established.
doi: 10.31774/2712-9357-2026-16-2-91-105
open canal, water metering, water flow, slope – area method, hydrometric cross-section, measurement error, earth canal
Vaynberg М. V., Baev O. A. Experimental justification of the measuring section length when implementing the slope – area method on irrigation canals. Land Reclamation and Hydraulic Engineering. 2026;16(2):91–105. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.31774/2712-9357-2026-16-2-91-105.
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Funding source: subsidies for the implementation of State Assignment No. 082-00063-26 PR are from the federal budget.
