Well drainage

Well drainage means drainage of agricultural lands by wells. Agricultural land is drained by pumped wells (vertical drainage) to improve the soils by controlling water table levels and soil salinity.

Introduction

Subsurface (groundwater) drainage for water table and soil salinity in agricultural land can be done by horizontal and vertical drainage systems.
Horizontal drainage systems are drainage systems using open ditches (trenches) or buried pipe drains.
Vertical drainage systems are drainage systems using pumped wells, either open dug wells or tube wells.

Both systems serve the same purposes, namely water table control and soil salinity control .
Both systems can facilitate the reuse of drainage water (e.g. for irrigation), but wells offer more flexibility.
Reuse is only feasible if the quality of the groundwater is acceptable and the salinity is low.

Design

Although one well may be sufficient to solve groundwater and soil salinity problems in a few hectares, one usually needs a number of wells, because the problems may be widely spread.
The wells may be arranged in a triangular, square or rectangular pattern.
The design of the well field concerns depth, capacity, discharge, and spacing of the wells.