Land surface characteristics, especially slope and highs and lows or irregularities, substantially affect the efficiency of irrigation systems. Indeed, the type of irrigation system to be employed is determined by the land surface itself. Ideally the land surface should be such that the irrigation water moves as uniformly as possible but the natural landscape is not always so. Therefore, the natural landscape or topography is altered, entailing the movement of earth from one place (high) to another (low). Land leveling or smoothing is one of the most important surface irrigation management and design practices. The objective of this chapter is to discuss the methodology for altering the landscape and various aspects thereof.

Border irrigation is one of the popular methods of surface irrigation, especially in developing countries, largely because there is little energy required for irrigating agricultural fields as water flows under gravity, the cost involved is low, and the skill needed to construct borders is minimal. This chapter discusses the method and design of border irrigation.

Chapter 5 treats the topic of hydropower generation from turbines. Hydraulic turbines generate electricity. This chapter explains hydropower in Section 5.1, turbine types in Section 5.2 and turbine cavitation in Section 5.3.

Chapter 13 introduces different types of spillways and gates. Hydraulic structures provide human-made control of flow depth and discharge. This chapter provides a broad overview of this complex topic with a few calculation examples for two main types of structures: spillways in Section 13.1 and gates in Section 13.2.

Chapter 15 summarizes the fundamentals of geohydrology. This chapter provides a brief overview of the physical properties of wet soils in Section 15.1 and discussion of processes associated with high water content in Section 15.2.

Chapter 14 outlines broad-based concepts in hydrology. Hydrology keeps focus on flood magnitude and frequency to better design hydraulic structures. This chapter reviews hydrologic processes in Section 14.1, flood discharge in Section 14.2 and extreme floods in Section 14.3.

Chapter 7 presents fundamental methods for unsteady flow in pipes. The material bridges the gap between spring-mass systems covered in engineering mechanics and flow oscillations in pipes. This more advanced treatment focuses on fluid oscillations in pipes without friction in Section 7.1, with laminar friction in Section 7.2, turbulent friction in Section 7.3 and oscillations between reservoirs in Section 7.4.

Chapter 9 deals with rapidly varied open-channel flow. Rapidly varied flow refers to nonuniform flow conditions changing suddenly over short distances. The analysis of rapidly varied flow requires the application of the principles of conservation of energy in Section 9.1 and conservation of momentum in Section 9.2. This leads us to the definition of hydraulic controls in Section 9.3.

Chapter 3 derives the governing equations describing the motion of water. It uses the concept of impulse-momentum to calculate hydrodynamic forces. We examine the forces from water jets in Section 3.1 and forces in pipes in Section 3.2 prior to a review of flow measurement techniques in Section 3.3.

Chapter 11 broaches the advanced topic of unsteady flow in open channels. The governing equation for floodwave propagation is derived in Section 11.1 with solutions to the advection-diffusion equation in Section 11.2.

Chapter 4 guides the design of pumping systems. Pumps move water through pipes systems. Chapter 4 discusses pump types in Section 4.1, pump performance in Section 4.2 and cavitation in Section 4.3.

Chapter 16 covers essential knowledge of groundwater. This chapter reviews groundwater flows in terms of permeability in Section 16.1, steady flow in Section 16.2 and unsteady groundwater flow in Section 16.3.