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- Title
Bailout with White Revolution or Sink Deeper? Groundwater Depletion and Impacts in the Moga District of Punjab, India.
- Authors
Amarasinghe, Upali A.; Smakhtin, Vladimir; Sharma, Bharat R.; Eriyagama, Nishadi
- Abstract
This report assesses water depletion from the consumptive water use (CWU) of agricultural production in the Moga District of the State of Punjab in India. In particular, it focuses on the growth in agricultural production and stress on water resources induced by groundwater irrigation. Forage crops, wheat and rice comprise more than 99% of the annual cropped area in Moga, making milk-wheat-rice the dominant production system. The CWU of milk, wheat and rice production is estimated to be 940, 554 and 1,380 cubic meters per tonne (m3/tonne), respectively. The contribution of groundwater to the total annual irrigation CWU — 94% of 1,461 million cubic meters (MCM) — is so large that groundwater embedded in the surplus production over the local consumption of rice, wheat and milk alone exceeds the estimated groundwater recharge in the District. The groundwater CWU in rice production is 1.7 to 2 times higher than those of milk and wheat. This suggests that a reduction in rice cultivation throughout Moga is the key to lowering the groundwater CWU. The financial value of the output of the rice-wheat-milk production system is 10 and 27% lower than that of the milk-wheat and milk-only production systems, respectively. Thus, the intensification of dairy production, with a calculated reduction in the rice area to compensate for increasing requirements for green fodder, can bring the groundwater depletion to sustainable limits, while producing a surplus of rice for export. The optimum combination is to reduce the rice area from 90 to 62% of the net irrigated area (NIA) and increase the green fodder area from 10 to 20% of NIA in the Kharif (summer) season; allocate 90 and 10% of the NIA for wheat and green fodder in the Rabi (winter) season; and double the lactating dairy animals from 4 to 8 per 6 hectares (ha) of land. Moga is only one microcosm example of the prevailing precarious situation. Reduction of the rice area and intensification of dairy production with more green fodder may be a viable solution throughout the entire State of Punjab. Many other regions in India also suffer from similar unsustainable groundwater use. A measured change in agricultural production patterns is a possible way out for these regions from this precarious situation of groundwater depletion.
- Subjects
PUNJAB (India); INDIA; FINANCIAL bailouts; DEFORESTATION; GROUNDWATER monitoring; ENVIRONMENTAL monitoring; WATER use; AGRICULTURAL productivity
- Publication
IWMI Research Reports Series, 2010, Issue 138, p1
- ISSN
1026-0862
- Publication type
Article