Strategic Ground Water Management Planning for Rice Field in Rangpur Division, Bangladesh

Abstract

Bangladesh is a land of agriculture and attain near self-sufficiency in rice production. In terms of rice, national output increased over 15 million tons in the last two decades. For obtaining this self sufficiency, groundwater accessibility is continuously increasing that results in expansion of deep and shallow tube wells. Available evidence suggests that the policy focus so far has been largely on “resource development”, and not on “resource management”. This has resulted in serious problems, most notably excessive drawdown in intensively irrigated areas, and the deterioration of groundwater quality. Due to this, an extensive field survey was carried out in Rangpur division (Country’s Northern part) during the year of 2018 to observe the ground water table depletion status in rice field and set up some top most strategies for reviving these problems in a sustainable way. It can be suggested that attention must be given to the development and management of surface water resources to ease pressure on groundwater. Apart from that, focus should be given on optimizing crop water demand through increasing water use efficiency by adopting water conserving management strategies and practices. As per authors’ suggestion, 6 basic strategies can be taken for long term sustainability of ground water management in Rangpur division. The strategies are: 1) Initiate right choice of rice varieties for the season 2) Implement modern water management technology (alternate wetting and drying (AWD), cut off Ratio) 3) Adopting Irrigation scheduling 4) Introduce organic fertilization 5) Apply rain water harvesting and 6) reservoir management.