Almost all posts in the hydro section of the forum are about using flowing water to generate electricity, which is great, but my need is different. We have a flowing stream in the middle of a valley that is lower than the surrounding meadow to be irrigated. There are two existing diversion dams that direct water into irrigation ditches for flood irrigation (another discussion needed). However the most upstream portion and surrounding meadow is hard to irrigate. The original irrigation ditch is 3/4 of a mile into the upstream neighbor's property, if fairly hard to access and the stream bed has lowered, making in increasingly harder to put in a seasonal dam to direct water into the upstream ditch.
My idea is that maybe somehow we could use the flow of the stream to power a device that would pump a lesser amount of water up to the level of the surrounding meadow - maybe 10 feet higher at most at the higher edges. An added complication is that no electricity is available in this location and while we have used gasoline powered pumps, it is somewhat remote making it hard to refill the engines and costly to keep them running for periods of time.
Fair game is a water wheel that turns a generator that produces electricity that runs an electric pump and indeed, perhaps this should be the bench mark to evaluate other approaches. While somewhat rare for irrigation use, in modern times, there are devices like ram pumps, spiral water wheel pumps, direct lift water wheels and water wheels that can power mechanical water pumps that use a lot of water to pump a smaller amount of water. Each of the approaches have their advantages and issues, few are commercially available and I currently have no idea of the specific trade-offs and which are working out better.
I'm searching for others interested in using water to pump water, including "water wheel pumps'. If you know anyone like this, perhaps you can help make them aware of this post and help us connect.
Thanks.
Dave