Farmers’ Adaptation and Regional Land-Use Changes in Irrigation Systems under Fluctuating Water Supply, South India
Publication: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 136, Issue 9
Abstract
In closing river basins where nearly all available water is committed to existing uses, downstream irrigation projects are expected to experience water shortages more frequently. Understanding the scope for resilience and adaptation of large surface irrigation systems is vital to the development of management strategies designed to mitigate the impact of river basin closure on food production and the livelihoods of farmers. A multilevel analysis (farm-level surveys and regional assessment through remote-sensing techniques and statistics) of the dynamics of irrigation and land use in the Nagarjuna Sagar project (South India) in times of changing water availability (2000–2006) highlights that during low-flow years, there is large-scale adoption of rainfed or supplementary irrigated crops that have lower land productivity but higher water productivity, and that a large fraction of land is fallowed. Cropping pattern changes during the drought reveal short-term coping strategies rather than long-term evolutions: after the shock, farmers reverted to their usual cropping patterns during years with adequate canal supplies. For the sequence of water supply fluctuations observed from 2000 to 2006, the Nagarjuna Sagar irrigation system shows a high level of sensitivity to short-term perturbations, but long-term resilience if flows recover. Management strategies accounting for local-level adaptability will be necessary to mitigate the impacts of low-flow years but there is scope for improvement of the performance of the system.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by a grant from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). The writers would like to acknowledge the tremendous work done by Mr. P. Srinivas Rao, Mr. B. Rajaiah, and Mr. Kiran Kumar in collecting secondary and primary data. The writers thank V. Ratna Reddy and D. Umapathy for their collaboration on the farm-level study. Sincere thanks are also due to the farmers of Nagarjuna Sagar and the staff of the Irrigation and Command Area Development Department and the mandal revenue offices for their help and support.
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Published In
Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 136 • Issue 9 • September 2010
Pages: 595 - 609
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Jan 15, 2009
Accepted: Jan 19, 2010
Published online: Jan 22, 2010
Published in print: Sep 2010
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