Irrigation Performance Assessment and Soil Suitability Analysis

Tono irrigation project is located at Navrongo in the Upper East Region of Ghana. This study was done, due to the current situation of the scheme, to assess the irrigation performance and soil suitability analysis. Even though the results show that excess amount of water was supplied to the selected crops in the study area in 2008/2009 and 2010/2011 seasons, the irrigation performance indicators reveal that the selected crops are under stress (insufficient water supplied). This means that some of the total amount of water supplied to the field is drained through the broken canals and lost through evaporation. The results from Aquachem software indicates that the salinity and Sodium Adsorption ratio levels are within the ranges of the representative of most reservoir water in the Tono reservoir. Moreover, the soil quality results of selected parameters also indicates that the soils have low potential for retaining plants nutrients hence the soils in the area are of low quality.

Adams Sadick is a research scientist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research of Soil Research Institute, Ghana. His research areas are: Geo-information Science and Earth Observation (Water Sector), Water quality analysis, Irrigation assessment, Soil quality, Environmental impact assessment.