In agricultural settings, flumes have two uses: water rights apportionment and edge-of-field monitoring.
Of the two, water rights apportionment is the more common, being performed by ranchers and farmers throughout the Intermountain and West Coast regions of the US.
Edge-of-Field monitoring is conducted by educational, governmental, and industry researchers to, among other things, characterize runoff flows, how to mitigate them, and their impact on catchments or watersheds.
Flume Styles
The flumes used by the two segments tends to differ in that water rights installations experience more regular flows and the installations are permanent and commonly in manmade irrigation channels and canals.
Parshall and Cutthroat flumes are used in water rights installations as the flumes fit the range of flows and both fit the channels such flumes are installed in. Parshall flumes being most commonly used in new or rehabilitated channels and Cutthroat flumes ring used where flat gradients are present or where it is not practical (either because of cost or insufficient upstream freeboard).
Edge-of-field installations are, by their nature, not intended for permanent monitoring; they tend to be freestanding to minimize installation and demobilization costs. Edge-of-field flumes are almost always of the H or HL style (HS flumes not offering enough trip end range and other flumes not offer the range of flows such an installation can experience).