• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.65 no.6
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• pp.1-13
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• 2023

Irrigation return flow plays an important role in river flow forecasting, basin water supply planning, and determining irrigation water use. Therefore, accurate calculation of irrigation return flow rate is essential for the rational use and management of water resources. In this study, EPA-SWMM (Environmental Protection Agency-Storm Water Management Model) modeling was used to analyze the irrigation return flow and return flow rate of each intake work using irrigation canal network. As a result of the EPA-SWMM, we tried to estimate the quick return flow and delayed return flow using the water supply, paddy field, drainage, infiltration, precipitation, and evapotranspiration. We selected 9 districts, including pumping stations and weirs, to reflect various characteristics of irrigation water, focusing on the four major rivers (Hangang, Geumgang, Nakdonggang, Yeongsangang, and Seomjingang). We analyzed the irrigation period from May 1, 2021 to September 10, 2021. As a result of estimating the irrigation return flow rate, it varied from approximately 44 to 56%. In the case of the Gokseong Guseong area with the highest return flow rate, it was estimated that the quick return flow was 4,677 10³ m³ and the delayed return flow was 1,473 10³ m³ , with a quick return flow rate of 42.6% and a delayed return flow rate of 13.4%.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.63 no.2
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• pp.85-96
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• 2021

Irrigation return flow is defined as the excess of irrigation water that is not evapotranspirated by direct surface drainage, and which returns to an aquifer. It is important to quantitatively estimate the irrigation return flow of the water cycle in an agricultural watershed. However, the previous studies on irrigation return flow rates are limitations in quantifying the return flow rate by region. Therefore, simulating irrigation return flow by accounting for various water loss rates derived from agricultural practices is necessary while the hydrologic and hydraulic modeling of cultivated canal-irrigated watersheds. In this study, the irrigation return flow rate of agricultural water, especially for the entire agricultural watershed, was estimated using the SWMM (Storm Water Management Model) module from 2010 to 2019 for the Madun reservoir located in Anseong, Gyeonggi-do. The results of SWMM simulation and water balance analysis estimated irrigation return flow rate. The estimated average annual irrigation return flow ratio during the period from 2010 to 2019 was approximately 55.3% of the annual irrigation amounts of which 35.9% was rapid return flow and 19.4% was delayed return flow. Based on these results, the hydrologic and hydraulic modeling approach can provide a valuable approach for estimating the irrigation return flow under different hydrological and water management conditions.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.69-78
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• 2015

The objective of this study was to investigate characteristics of irrigation return flow from paddy block in a reservoir irrigated district during growing seasons. The irrigation return flow was divided into three parts, quick return flow from irrigation canal (RFI), quick return flow from drainage canal (RFD), and delayed return flow (DRF). The RFI was calculated from water level and stage-discharge relationships at the ends of the irrigation canals. The DRF was estimated using measured infiltration amount from paddy fields of the irrigated district. A combined monitoring and modeling method was used to estimate the RFD by subtracting surface runoff from surface drainage. The paddy block irrigated from the Idong reservoir was selected to study the irrigation return flow components. The results showed that daily agricultural water supply (AWS), the RFI, and the RFD were $27.4mm\;day^{-1}$, $4.9mm\;day^{-1}$, and $19.8mm\;day^{-1}$, respectively in May, which were greater than other months (p<0.05). The return flow ratio of the RFI and the RFD were the greatest in July (34.6%) and May (72.3%), respectively. The daily AWS was closely correlated with the RFD (correlation coefficients of 0.76~0.86) in except for July with, while correlation coefficient with the RFI were 0.56 and 0.42 in June and July, respectively (p<0.01). The total irrigation return flow was 1,965 mm in 2011, and 1,588 mm in 2012, resulting in total return flow ratio of 84.6% and 79.1%, respectively. This results indicate that substantial amounts of agricultural water were returned to streams as irrigation return flow. Thus, irrigation return flow should be fully considered into the agricultural water resources planning in Korea.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.41-49
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• 2010

Return flow rate of irrigation water was estimated by water balance method. Daepyeong pumping district to irrigate 75.8 ha of rice paddy in the Geum river basin was selected to install gauging instruments to collect data such as weather, water levels, infiltration rate and evapotranspiration during irrigation season (May 27 to Sept. 20) in 2003 and 2004. Irrigation and drainage discharge were calculated from the rating curve and evapotranspiration was estimated both by the modified Penman formula and by the lysimeter. The results were as followed : 1. Total amounts of pumping water during irrigation season were $1,076,000\;m^3$ in 2003 and $1,848,000\;m^3$ in 2004. Total amounts of rainfall were 1336.0mm and 1003.0mm respectively during the irrigation season in 2003 and 2004. 2. It was surveyed that the amount of infiltration was 196.5 mm (2.2 mm/day). The gauged evapotranspiration was 311.0 mm (3.5 mm/day) and the calculated evapotranspiration was 346.0 mm (3.9 mm/day) during irrigation period in 2003. It was surveyed that the amount of infiltration was 169.9 mm (2.4 mm/day). The amount of gauged evapotranspiration was 377.3 mm (5.3 mm/day) and the calculated evapotranspiration was 454.5 mm (6.6 mm/day) during irrigation period in 2004. 3. The rates of quick and delayed return flow were 52.4 % and 17.7 % respectively, and so return flow rate was 70.1 % in 2003. The rates of quick and delayed return flow were 45.4 % and 16.1 % respectively, and so return flow rate was 61.5 % in 2004. It means that average return flow rate in the Daepyeong pumping district was assumed to be 65 %.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.19-28
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• 2020

This study proposed a simple estimation method for irrigation return flow from paddy fields using the water balance model. The merit of this method is applicability to other paddy fields irrigated from agricultural reservoirs due to the simplicity compared with the previous monitoring based estimation method. It was assumed that the unused amount of irrigation water was the return flow which included the quick and delayed return flows. The amount of irrigation supply from a reservoir was estimated from the reservoir water balance with the storage rate and runoff model. It was also assumed that the infiltration was the main source of the delayed return flow and that the other delayed return flow was neglected. In this study, the amount of reservoir inflow and water demand from paddy field are calculated on a daily basis, and irrigation supply was calculated on 10-day basis, taking into account the uncertainty of the model and the reliability of the data. The regression rate was calculated on a yearly basis, and yearly data was computed by accumulating daily and 10-day data, considering that the recirculating water circulation cycle was relatively long. The proposed method was applied to the paddy blocks of the Jamhong and Seosan agricultural reservoirs and the results were acceptable.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers Conference
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• 1999.10c
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• pp.105-110
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• 1999

Unused irrigation water due to delievery losses and management losses. and ground water releases from infiltration in the paddy irrigation system are eventually returned to the stream. They are called as irrigation return flow. It affects the discharge of drought flow in the down strenamflow. And it may contain chemicals, and threaten streamflow quality . Thus, the accurage estimation of irrigation return flow is important to the streamflow modeling and water resources planning , and also to the control of agriculutral nonpoint source pollution . The irrigation return flow of pumped water was investigated in the Keum river watershed.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.37 no.7
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• pp.517-526
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• 2004

Agricultural water plays an important role in the national water management. Irrigation return flow is the amount of irrigated water that returns to the river system. In the water resources development planing and management, an accurate estimation of the irrigation return flow is very important. In this study, a 5.5 ha small size paddy area in Kyungbuk province is selected and the water balance components are measured during the 2003 growing season. The total irrigation return flow ratio was 53.7%, of which 30.2% was rapid return flow and 23.5% was delayed return flow.

• KCID journal
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.274-282
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• 2006

The objective of this study was to develop a hydrologic simulation model to predict daily streamflow from a small agricultural watershed considering irrigation return flow. The proposed IREFLOW(Irrigation REturn FLOW) model consists of hillslope runoff model, irrigation scheme drainage model, and irrigation return flow model, and simulates daily streamflow from an irrigated watershed. Two small watersheds were selected for monitoring of hydrological components and evaluating the model application. The relative error (RE) between observed and simulated daily streamflow were 2.9% and 6.4%, respectively, on two small agricultural watersheds (Baran and Gicheon) for the calibration period. The values of RE in daliy streamflow for the validation period were 6.0% for the Baran watershed, and 2.8% for the Gicheon watershed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers Conference
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• 1998.10a
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• pp.87-91
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• 1998

Unused irrigation water due to delivery losses and overflow from paddies in an irrigation system, and groundwater releases from infiltration are eventually returned to stream. The estimate of irrigation returnflow is important to streamflow modeling and water resources planning. This study was to field monitor the irrigation water use, streamflow, lateral inflow and ground water level, and to determine the return flow of irrigation water

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.249-255
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• 2004

To investigate the return flow ratio of irrigation water, lots of observations were made during the irrigation periods in 2003 crop year. This Area is a portion of Dae-Am pumping station basin which is located in Changryung-gun, Gyeongnam province. A water balance analysis was performed for a paddy field in Dae-Am pumping station in the Nakdong river basin, which is constructed for irrigation water supply. Daily rainfall data in the this area were collected and irrigation water flow rate, drainage water flow rate, infiltration and evaportranspiration were measured in field area. Irrigation water flow rate and drainage water flow rate were continuously observed by water level logger(GTDL-L10) during the growing season. The infiltration and evaportranspiration were measured by cylindrical 300mm depletion meter and cylindrical 200mm infiltrometer, respectively. Total irrigation and drainage flows were 654.7mm and 281.2mm in 2003. Total infiltration and evaportranspiration were 36.0mm and 160.0mm respectively. The mean of the daily evaportranspiration rate was 4.3mmm/d. The prompt return flow and retard return flow ratio were 43.0％ and 5.5％, respectively. Total return flow ratio was 48.5％. Therefore, it can be concluded that the amount of irrigation water was much higher than design standard or reference in this study. It means that this was caused by the inadequate water management practice in the area where water was oversupplied on farmers' request rather than following sound water management principles, and design standard should be changed in the future.