Irrigation is the application of controlled amounts of water to plants at needed intervals. Irrigation helps to grow agricultural crops, maintain landscapes, and revegetate disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of less than average rainfall. Irrigation also has other uses in crop production, including frost protection, suppressing weed growth in grain fields and preventing soil consolidation. In contrast, agriculture that relies only on direct rainfall is referred to as rain-fed or dry land farming.
It can take a number of different forms, from irrigation ditches to drip irrigation and more. It also applies to maintaining landscaping features, such as turf/grass, trees, shrubs, and flowers.
Irrigation has essentially been used since humans first began cultivating plants. Any sort of cultivated plant requires water in order to grow and thrive. In many instances, rainfall is not sufficient to achieve this goal. In other instances, an area may experience short or prolonged periods of drought.
Irrigation systems are also used for cooling livestock, dust suppression, disposal of sewage, and in mining. Irrigation is often studied together with drainage, which is the removal of surface and sub-surface water from a given area.
History of Irrigation:-
Agriculture is the oldest way to serve food to the human. Ancient people from different regions used the irrigation system to supply water to their agricultural lands. At that time irrigation was mainly the control of water flow. Mesopotamia and Egypt was the most successful user of the irrigation system. A brief description of the history of irrigation is stated below.
Mesopotamia:-
Mesopotamia (at present Iraq and some parts of Iran) was familiar as the land of two rivers of Tigris (to the north) and Euphrates (to the south). As rains were seasonal, irrigation in Mesopotamia was extremely necessary for its agriculture. Another problem was that Tigris and Euphrates carried a large amount of silt which caused floods. So, a system was developed for controlling the direction and flow of water. Canals and irrigation ditches were also built for supplying water to the fields.
