Abstract
A theory based on Manning roughness equation, Philip equation and water balance equation was developed which only employed the advance distance in the calculation of the infiltration parameters and irrigation coefficients in both the border irrigation and the surge irrigation. The improved procedure was validated with both the border irrigation and surge irrigation experiments. The main results are shown as follows. Infiltration parameters of the Philip equation could be calculated accurately only using water advance distance in the irrigation process comparing to the experimental data. With the calculated parameters and the water balance equation, the irrigation coefficients were also estimated. The water advance velocity should be measured at about 0.5 m to 1.0 m far from the water advance in the experimental corn fields.