An irrigation canal is a hydraulic system whose main objective is to convey water from a source (dam and river) to different users. Such systems can be very large (several tens or hundreds of kilometers); they are characterized by time delays and nonlinear dynamics, strong unknown perturbations and interactions among subsystems. Varying operational objectives are assigned to their managers. The main general objective is to provide water to the different users at the right moment and in the right quantity, reducing losses as much as possible in order to guarantee the safety of the infrastructure. In particular, a major concern is to prevent the canals from overtopping, and also from having water levels inside the pools below the supply depths of the gravity offtakes.
What is the difference between canal and channel ? Both the words canal and channel refer to waterways. Although these words are sometimes used interchangeably, we use the word canal to mainly refer to man-made waterways like Panama Canal and Suez Canal. But a channel is a natural waterway between two landmasses that lie close to each other.
Channel irrigation' allows irrigation over large areas, with large volumes of water. Compared to drip irrigation it is very wasteful in terms of water conservation, but better at dealing with large areas.
