Management of water resources through participatory approach

Abstract

Considering the importance of irrigation management and water user’s participation in increasing water productivity and development of existing irrigation command area, a study were carried out to assess the present irrigation system and management of water resources for possible improvement in command area of Ghatera Babaji tank canal situated in Betwa River basin. The command area has 101 land holdings ranging from 0.23 ha to 6.32 ha belonging to 87 farmers. Cropping intensity and irrigation intensity was found to be 83.4% and 81% respectively. Productivity of wheat crop varied from 4.5 to 35.1 q ha-1 which converted to water productivity ranged from 0.33 to 1.55 kg m-3. Water productivity for chickpea varied from 0.97 kg m-3 to 1.86 kg m-3. More than 50 per cent farmers were agreed on conjunctive use, sprinkler irrigation, improving crops and field bunding. Out of the total 5 groups of farmers surveyed to know about adaptive behaviour it was found that the suggestions were acceptable to four group’s categorized based on age, education, income and land holding in Ghatera Babaji WUA's. Depending on the soil, crop, water resources, water users and climatic conditions improvements were suggested to change irrigation method, replacement of crop varieties, better working of water user association, irrigation scheduling, drainage planning, maintenance of canal, operation of canal, and adopting full package of practices for crops.