Drainage System (agriculture) - Applications

Applications

Surface drainage systems are usually applied in relatively flat lands that have soils with a low or medium infiltration capacity, or in lands with high-intensity rainfalls that exceed the normal infiltration capacity, so that frequent waterlogging occurs on the soil surface.
Subsurface drainage systems are used when the drainage problem is mainly that of shallow water tables.
When both surface and subsurface waterlogging occur, a combined surface/subsurface drainage system is required.
Sometimes, a subsurface drainage system is installed in soils with a low infiltration capacity, where a surface drainage problem may improve the soil structure and the infiltration capacity so greatly that a surface drainage system is no longer required.
On the other hand, it can also happen that a surface drainage system diminishes the recharge of the groundwater to such an extent that the subsurface drainage problem is considerably reduced or even eliminated.
The choice between a subsurface drainage system by pipes and ditches or by tube wells is more a matter of technical criteria and costs than of agricultural criteria, because both types of systems can be designed to meet the same agricultural criteria and achieve the same benefits. Usually, pipe drains or ditches are preferable to wells. However, when the soil consists of a poorly permeable top layer several meters thick, overlying a rapidly permeable and deep subsoil, wells may be a better option, because the drain spacing required for pipes or ditches would be considerably smaller than the spacing for wells.

When the land needs a subsurface drainage system, but saline groundwater is present at great depth, it is better to employ a shallow, closely spaced system of pipes or ditches instead of a deep, widely spaced system. The reason is that the deeper systems produce a more salty effluent than the shallow systems. Environmental criteria may then prohibit the use of the deeper systems.
In some drainage projects, one may find that only main drainage systems are envisaged. The agricultural land is then still likely to suffer from field drainage problems. In other cases, one may find that field drainage systems are ineffective because there is no adequate main drainage system. In either case, the installation of drainage systems is not recommended.
Reference: gives a general description of land drainage in the world and shows a paper on types of agricultural land drainage systems used in different parts of the world.