Modelling Optimum Utilization of Irrigation Resources

Abstract

This chapter deals with a case study on the development of a model for the management of irrigation system. The motivation for this case study was a severe crisis faced by farmers of the Pennar Delta in Andhra Pradesh, India. This work was taken up at the request of a Superintending Engineer of the concerned Irrigation Department. Upon educating the engineer about the utility and effectiveness of optimization techniques for his problem, the engineer came forward for exploring a scientific approach and a mathematical model for finding a solution to the problem of planning water resources and scheduling the distribution of reservoir waters through the irrigation channels of the Pennar Delta. Given the requirements, availabilities of water at various nodes and the particulars of the irrigation network of the system, the problem can be formulated as a multicommodity network flow problem. This chapter presents an approach for solving the problem. The problem is formulated as a dynamic minimum cost network flow problem and provides an approach to solve the problem using static network flow models. Due to non-availability of required data, the scope of the work was confined to modeling the problem. This work also helped in training a post graduate student on live applications of modeling practical problems.