Summary

Land and water productivity in middle and tail reaches of canal commands in north-west India has remained low due to poor canal water demand-supply management and inefficient on-farm water management practices. This could further degrade due to deterioration in canal condition, ongoing secondary soil salinization and waterlogging, limited farmers' investment potential and diversion to other water users' sectors. In order to enhance productivity, a holistic approach needs to be applied to understand spatial variability of resources and socio-economic conditions in a canal command to develop best management practices (BMPs) for canal reach specific problems. Satellite remote sensing, GPS survey, PRA and GIS are employed to assess and monitor productivity at distributary/watercourse levels. Therefore, the project is aimed to develop an irri-agro informatics database and a GIS based decision support system (DSS) for the Western Yamuna Canal (WYC) command in Haryana by integrating bio-physical resources and socio-economic data to delineate areas of low productivity and to generate realistic best management practices (BMPs) for enhancing productivity in various scenarios of canal water distribution at mid and tail reaches including deficit canal water supply, poor soil and water quality, and waterlogging conditions. The developed SDSS would effectively be transferred to stakeholders in order to choose BMP plans for growing more food with less water in saline environment.

Strength of the Project
  • Consortium mode for project development and implementation by utilizing expertise of three participating institutions (CSSRI, WTC and NIH).

  • Bottom-up approach to problem solving and modelling.

  • State-of-the-art technology employed including satellite remote sensing, GIS, GPS, PRA and physically based modelling.

  • Stakeholders' servicing to infuse confidence on the developed DSS technology through demonstrations, workshops and trainings.