‘Over a quarter of a billion hectares of the planet are irrigated. Entire countries depend on irrigation for their survival and indeed for their very existence.’ These words, from the author's preface, set the scene for this extensive and informative book, which draws on his 40 years of experience worldwide.
The engineering coverage is encyclopaedic, concentrating on ‘surface irrigation’, where water flows to the fields via channel systems. However, beyond consideration of just about every engineering aspect of canal design and construction, there are also chapters headed Troubleshooting – Feedback from the Field, and Costs and Economics.
The author takes a broad view of the social and political contexts in which surface irrigation operates in the early 21st century, whilst linking such topics to engineering practicalities. This is an important contribution, following a period when irrigation planning has been (too?) heavily dominated by socio-economic approaches.
The text pages are well illustrated with diagrams, design drawings and photographs. However, there is also extensive additional image material – listed separately in the book – which may be downloaded from the author's own website (at no charge) or, in higher definition, via a separate CD (at cost of £100) – obtainable from the publishers. The reader without access to the Web (or the CD) will have plenty to absorb from the book itself, as the ‘extra’ material is additional to the main themes. The book, although not cheap, is to be recommended to (as the publisher rightly suggests) ‘engineers, technicians, agriculturalists, economists, students and policy makers’.
