Dryland water resource scarcity has been the most challenging issue facing the continuous development of irrigated agricultural systems. Although drip irrigation, especially subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) technology, reduced water loss from soil evaporation and increased water use efficiency (WUE), drip emitter with pumps brought large electric energy consumption and management cost, limiting its application for smallholders in dryland. Therefore, a new subsurface ceramic emitter (SCE) without using pumps, which consisted of a porous ceramic diaphragm, plastic washers, and plastic shells, was designed for smallholders in this study. Then its application effects were estimated using hydraulic, soil bin, pot, and field experiments. The results showed that the discharge of SCE in the air had a positive linear relationship with the working water head. The discharge of SCE in soil presented a power function relationship with the working water head, and the discharge exponent was 0.40. It was recommended that SCE should install at flat farmland with a topographic slope less than ± 5‰ to acquire an acceptable coefficient of uniformity (CU) under the working water head of more than 40 cm. A field experiment in Northwest China showed that SCE with a working water head of 60 cm created a suitable water moisture environment and CU, improving fruit yield and WUE of wolfberry. This provided an alternative irrigation method using SCE with a lower working water head for smallholders in dryland while ensuring a good CU.

旱地水资源短缺一直是灌溉农业系统不断发展面临的最具挑战性的问题。尽管滴灌特别是地下滴灌（SDI）技术减少了土壤蒸发造成的水量损失，提高了水分利用效率（WUE），但泵式滴灌带来了较大的电能消耗和管理成本，限制了其在旱地小农户中的应用。因此，一种新型的地下陶瓷发射器（SCE）在本研究中为小农户设计，无需使用泵，该泵由多孔陶瓷隔膜、塑料垫圈和塑料外壳组成。然后通过水力试验、土仓试验、盆栽试验、田间试验等评价其应用效果。结果表明，SCE在空气中的排放量与工作水头呈正线性关系。SCE在土壤中的排放量与工作水头呈幂函数关系，排放指数为0.40。建议SCE安装在地形坡度小于±5‰的平坦农田，以在工作水头大于40 cm的情况下获得可接受的均匀系数（ CU ）。在西北地区的现场试验表明，SCE60厘米的工作水头创造了适宜的水湿环境和CU ，提高了枸杞的产量和WUE 。这为旱地小农提供了一种使用SCE 的替代灌溉方法，其工作水头较低，同时确保良好的CU。