Designing Decision Support Systems to aid Irrigation Water Planning and Management in command areas

Abstract

Designing Decision Support Systems to aid Irrigation Water Planning and Management in command areas

Vimal Garg, Ritu Seth
Water & Power Consultancy Services (India) Ltd., 76-C, Sector 18, Institutional Area, Gurgaon-122015
E-Mail: vimalg@del3.vsnl.net.in, ritu70@yahoo.com

Abstract
Developing irrigation potential over a command area requires considerable efforts both in terms of time and money. The main crux of the development of the irrigation facilities lies in making it economically, socially and environmentally viable where the returns from the area are optimized.

Optimization of irrigation water requirements requires proper irrigation scheduling based on the crop water requirements of the different crops sown over an area during that particular season. Remote Sensing and GIS can help extensively in this exercise.

Landuse cover and cropping patterns of the command area for all cropping seasons and irrigation water requirements on area basis for all crops sown are the most important information for proper irrigation planning and management. The information on landuse and cropping pattern are extracted with the help of multi-date satellite imageries as well as existing records and stored as different layers in GIS in the form of spatial and non-spatial data. Crop water requirement for different crops is also appended as an information layer alongwith different data layers of water availability during the entire year, crop calendar, irrigation efficiency, landuse efficiency, soil characteristics, proximity of market places, use of agro-chemicals and fertilizers, socio-economic parameters, climatic and weather conditions, ground water to assess possibility of conjunctive uses etc. All these determine and affect the irrigation water requirement for different crops. Integrating above data layers alongwith analytical models can provide a framework for Decision Support Systems (DSS) those can be explicitly designed to support Decision making process for complex irrigation problems.

GIS analysis help in scheduling the crops over all seasons depending upon the availability of water throughout and optimization of cropping pattern and intensity based on soil and climatic characteristics of the area and suitability and acceptability of different crops that ensures maximum returns. Once these are finalized, water delivery system, distribution and minors etc. can be designed accurately.