Availability Of Irrigation Water Research Articles

Evaluation of Irrigation Water Resources Availability and Climate Change Impacts—A Case Study of Mwea Irrigation Scheme, Kenya

Rice is an important cereal crop in Kenya, where it is mainly grown in the Mwea Irrigation Scheme, MIS. The serious challenges of MIS include low water use efficiency and limited available water resources. The objective of this study is to analyze the current and future irrigation water resource availability for the improvement of future water management. A Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), a public domain software supported by the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service in Bushland, TX, USA, was used to estimate the current and future water resources availability from the MIS’s main irrigation water supply sources (River Thiba and River Nyamindi). CropWat, a computer program developed by the Land and Water Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Rome, Italy, was used to estimate irrigation water requirements from 2013–2016 and into the future (2020–2060 and 2061–2099). Future climatic data for total available flow and irrigation requirement estimations were downloaded from three General Circulation Models (GCMs). The data was bias corrected and down-scaled (with observed data) using a Climate Change Toolkit, a toolkit for climate change analysis developed by the Water Weather and Energy Ecosystem, Zurich, Switzerland. The results indicated that the highest irrigation water deficits were experienced in July and August based on the existing cropping pattern. Under a proposed future pattern, estimates show that MIS will experience water deficits mainly from June to October and from January to February. This study recommends that MIS management should put into strong consideration the simulated future estimates in irrigation water availability for the improvement of water management.

Modeling the response of dry bean yield to irrigation water availability controlled by watershed hydrology

The effectiveness of agricultural productivity is dependent on the availability of ambient natural resources as well as on the efficiency of on-site management practices. The overall understanding of a production system can help with finding management options that enable for the available resources to be used more efficiently and thus improving productivity. We investigated the response of dry bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L) yield to water availability in an irrigation district controlled by off-site hydrology to show how integrated knowledge can benefit agricultural production. This study focused on an agricultural system where an upstream watershed provided water for dry bean production in its downstream irrigation district in Haiti. Dry bean growth was mathematically represented using the Cropping System Model (CSM)-CROPGRO-Dry bean model of the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT). The upstream runoff was measured to quantify irrigation water availability changes over time. The cultivar parameters of the dry bean model were calibrated to minimize differences between simulated and observed dry bean growth and yield. The model was then used to determine long-term dry bean response to water availability scenarios, including fifteen combinations of five growing periods and three irrigation conditions. The results showed that dry bean productivity was closely associated with the upstream watershed hydrology and that growing dry bean earlier than the standard management scenario (December to March) increased predicted dry bean yield by over 80 % with the available water resources and associated temporal variability. These findings indicate that an integrated systems approach could improve dry bean production by identifying alternative management practices to use the available water more efficiently.

Is small hydropower beautiful? Social impacts of river fragmentation in China's Red River Basin.

Small hydropower (SHP) is promoted as a pro-poor renewable energy source that does not have the negative social impacts of large dams. This article challenges these claims, using data from a household survey in China's upper Red River Basin. We find that SHP can fragment river systems in ways that reduce irrigation water availability, provoke changes to agricultural practices, and negatively impact river health. These social impacts of river fragmentation mainly occur in villages situated between a plant's intake and outflow. The frequency of plant water diversions due to continued generation in the dry season significantly predicts all social impacts; installed capacity of the plant and the quality of the village's irrigation infrastructure predict some impacts. Villages with strong local governance can negotiate with the plant to temporarily halt generation when irrigation water is needed, lessening social impacts. Our findings reveal that SHP plants are not as benign as they are made out to be; they must be built and managed according to community needs.

Additional Income Generation from Cultivation of Summer Mungbean in Rice-Wheat System of Haryana

Background: Mungbean [Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek], also known as green gram is cultivated on area of 4.75 million ha in kharif and rabi/ spring seasons as monocrop or intercrop in India. It serves as a major source of dietary protein for the vast majority of vegetarian people in the country. Mungbean contributed 10.03 per cent of total pulses production (23.40 million tonnes) in the country with productivity level of 494 kg ha-1 in 2018-19. The pulses cultivation in Haryana is almost eliminated in kharif season owing to deviation of area towards cotton, cluster bean and pearlmillet because of low profitability. However, the new window opens for cultivation of mungbean in rice-wheat cropping system in summer season to generate additional farm income and to improve soil health. The area under summer mungbean in state was around 64 thousand ha with the production of 50 thousand tonnes and the average productivity of 780 kg/ha during 2017-18. Although rice-wheat system provides better farm returns, but it has imposed threat to soil health, availability and contamination of ground water, weed and biotic stress management. Methods: The data pertains to costs and returns from summer mungbean cultivation was gathered from 60 mungbean cultivators of Hisar, Kurukshetra and Panipat districts of Haryana having adequate irrigation water availability adopting personal interaction approach in 2018-19. Simple budgeting technique was employed to draw practical implications which ultimately help to take favourable policy decisions for enhancing acreage of summer mungbean. Result: The inquiry profound that mungbean cultivation in summer season particularly in rice-wheat was established as additional income generation farm enterprise. The net benefits accrued from short duration varieties of mungbean over variable cost was Rs. 31831 ha-1 with time span of 60-70 days by utilizing fallow land in summer season. The B-C ratio toiled considering expenses incurred on variable resources with value of 2.99 divulges economic viability of mungbean cultivation in the study area. It is imperative from results that cultivation of short duration cultivars of mungbean is viable option to enhance farm income, restoration of diminishing soil fertility owing to adoption of continuous rice-wheat rotation by inherent characteristics of converting atmospheric nitrogen. Distinctive efforts are essential to evolve mungbean cultivars suitable to prevailing cropping system in Haryana and assure market procurement. The exploration of mungbean cultivation will reduce dependency on import and improve net availability of pulses in India.

Recent changes in rice production in rainfed lowland and irrigated ecosystems in Thailand

ABSTRACT While Thailand is a major rice exporting country in the world, the yield is low among Asian countries. In order to identify factors determining the changes in rice productivity in the country for the last 45 years (1974–2018), various data on production statistics from the Office of Agricultural Economics were analysed for two key regions of rainfed lowland-based Northeast Thailand and irrigated lowland-based Central Thailand. Rice yield increase in Thailand was slower in the first 16 years to 1989, but more rapid to 2011 followed by a large fluctuation in more recent time, and this pattern reflected in the pattern of rice production in the country. The changes in rice production were partly associated with the changes in irrigation water availability affecting dry season rice area and grain yield, thus increasing total production up to 2011, but thereafter decreasing production. The changes in production were also associated with other factors such as increased fertiliser application rate in early years, proportion of modern high yielding varieties adopted in Central Thailand in early years, and continuous agronomic improvement in Northeast Thailand throughout the whole period. In Northeast Thailand where the largest rice production takes place in the country, the same varieties of high grain quality but rather limited yield potential have dominated since 1974, indicating the importance of grain quality rather than high varietal yield in determining the total rice production in the country. Government policy has appeared to have affected the production, though it is not quantified in the study.

A methodology to classify irrigated areas: Application to the central Ebro River Basin in Aragón (Spain)

The large diversity of irrigated agricultural areas hinders the development of social consensus and complicates decision-making about the allocation of investments for irrigation modernization. A classification of irrigated areas permits the identification and mapping of different categories and reveals the strengths and weaknesses of each category regarding specific criteria. This paper proposes a binomial (genus and species) classification methodology of irrigated areas, which was designed based on a participatory approach. Four internal properties determine the genus: type of water source, type of water energy, on-farm irrigation method and water availability. Four external properties classify the variability within each genus into species: land tenure, crop type, existence of an environmental protection figure and socio-economic level. The words used for the genus and specific name arise from the concatenation of syllables representing the state or level of each property. The method was applied to the irrigated area of the Ebro river basin in the Aragón region of Spain (ERB-Aragón). A total of 435,851 ha were classified. A large part of the irrigated land uses surface water (94 %), does not have water availability problems (80 %), is not affected by environmental protection figures (97 %), is devoted to field crops (86 %), and manifests a low (45 %) or moderate (41 %) socio-economic level. A total of 24 genera and 126 species were identified. The two most representative genera are SurGraFloVe (31 %) and SurPumPreVe (27 %), and the two main species are SurGraFloVe DisCeNoLo (19 %) and SurPumPreVe ConCeNoMo (19 %). These species received the local names of “Ribera del Ebro” and “Alto Aragonés” to facilitate policy discussions. The application of the method to the ERB-Aragón provides a privileged insight that can support policy analyses and guide institutional intervention. The proposed methodology can be adapted to other areas of the world by adjusting criteria and categories to local conditions.

Transfer of Amudarya flowing part to increase the supportability of the Uzbekistan southern regions

The issues of the availability of irrigation water in the southern regions of Uzbekistan, the existing problems in machine irrigation systems, as well as the disadvantages and advantages of the proposed solutions, are analyzed. In analyzing the current situation, a systematic approach was used to address the issue of the availability of irrigation water in the southern regions of Uzbekistan. When choosing the most optimal options for laying the channel, modern methods of GIS technology were used. A situational analysis showed that water availability in the southern regions of the republic is complicated by the change and violation of the hydrological regime of the river basin by the construction of large reservoirs in its upper reaches. To solve problems with the security of the southern regions of the republic, a new concept is proposed for transferring part of the river flow. The proposed new concept of the transfer option differs from the previous ones by a) There are no additional costs for renting the territory of Turkmenistan; b) Conditions are being created for the development of various infrastructures in the southern regions of the republic; c) The construction of a reservoir on the territory of the Surkhandarya region will allow the danger of overflow of the Tuyamuyun reservoir in the winter and increase water supply to the Surkhandarya, Kashkadarya and Bukhara regions of the republic.

Suggestions offered by the chickpea growers to enhance the adoption of recommended chickpea production technology

Chickpea is one of the most important legume crops of Gujarat state. However, it was observed wide gap in between existing yield and potential yield in to the chickpea production. Looking to the importance of the problem, a study was conducted in Junagadh district of Gujarat State to seek the suggestions from the chickpea growers to enhance the adoption of recommended chickpea production technology. Four talukas; Maliya, Keshod, Mendarda and Junagadh of Junagadh district were purposively selected for the research. Total three villages were randomly selected from each selected taluka and 10 farmers were randomly selected from each village. Thus, total sample size was 120 farmers. In this investigation, major suggestions offered by the chickpea growers to enhance the adoption of recommended chickpea production technology were; supply of production inputs should be at subsidized rate (1.87 mean score), produces should be purchased by government at reasonable price (1.80 mean score), provide technical knowledge about insecticide, fungicide and weedicide (1.63 mean score), & water harvesting projects for increase the availability of irrigation water should be developed (1.43 mean score).

Crop Row Detection through UAV Surveys to Optimize On-Farm Irrigation Management

Climate change and competition among water users are increasingly leading to a reduction of water availability for irrigation; at the same time, traditionally non-irrigated crops require irrigation to achieve high quality standards. In the context of precision agriculture, particular attention is given to the optimization of on-farm irrigation management, based on the knowledge of within-field variability of crop and soil properties, to increase crop yield quality and ensure an efficient water use. Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) imagery is used in precision agriculture to monitor crop variability, but in the case of row-crops, image post-processing is required to separate crop rows from soil background and weeds. This study focuses on the crop row detection and extraction from images acquired through a UAV during the cropping season of 2018. Thresholding algorithms, classification algorithms, and Bayesian segmentation are tested and compared on three different crop types, namely grapevine, pear, and tomato, for analyzing the suitability of these methods with respect to the characteristics of each crop. The obtained results are promising, with overall accuracy greater than 90% and producer’s accuracy over 85% for the class “crop canopy”. The methods’ performances vary according to the crop types, input data, and parameters used. Some important outcomes can be pointed out from our study: NIR information does not give any particular added value, and RGB sensors should be preferred to identify crop rows; the presence of shadows in the inter-row distances may affect crop detection on vineyards. Finally, the best methodologies to be adopted for practical applications are discussed.

Distribution and Determinants of Fallow Land among Farmers of Central Dry Zone of Karnataka

Farmers in dry regions of India have a high tendency for leaving their land fallow. To decipher this phenomenon, the study was carried out in the Tumkur district of the central dry zone of Karnataka. Results from the study revealed a positive relationship between the size of land holdings and land fallow. The major reason stated by farmers for leaving their fallow land was the scarcity of rainfall or irrigation, and poor land fertility status. The Tobit regression model was fitted to study the determinants of the decision of farmers to keep the arable land fallow, where, dependent variable considered was the share of fallow land in the total size of landholding of farm households. It was found that the availability of water for irrigation and family labour has a negative relationship with fallow land. Other factors determining the extent of fallow land were the distance of land from residences, poor land fertility status and availability of credit.

Extent of Crop Diversification in Haryana

The study was conducted in different agro-climatic zones of the Haryana state. The results revealed that area under paddy, wheat, rapeseed and mustard, and cotton increased by 398, 147, 419 and 203 percent respectively during the period 1970to 2014, whereas, area under gram, maize, jowar, barley and bajra declined drastically by 92, 90, 70, 66 and 48 percent during the same period, respectively. As far as wheat and paddy specialization was concerned, Ambala, Kurukshetra, Kaithal, Karnal, Panipat, Sonepat districts remained specialized throughout the entire study period. The districts of Rewari, Mahendergarh and Gurgaon remained specialized in mustard throughout the entire period. The cotton crop remained specialized in districts of Hisar, Jind and Sirsa. Sugarcane not only specialized in Yamunanagar but also remained at the top with quotient values was of 6.35, 8.83 and 7.59 during Period-I, II and III respectively. The shift in area towards a particular crop in various districts was observed due to availability of irrigation water, profitability of crops and favorable public policies.

Water-Energy Management for Demand Charges and Energy Cost Optimization of a Pumping Stations System under a Renewable Virtual Power Plant Model

The effects of climate change seriously affect agriculture at different latitudes of the planet because periods of drought are intensifying and the availability of water for agricultural irrigation is reducing. In addition, the energy cost associated with pumping water has increased notably in recent years due to, among other reasons, the maximum demand charges that are applied annually according to the contracted demand in each facility. Therefore, very efficient management of both water resources and energy resources is required. This article proposes the integration of water-energy management in a virtual power plant (VPP) model for the optimization of energy costs and maximum demand charges. For the development of the model, a problem related to the optimal operation of electricity generation and demand resources arises, which is formulated as a nonlinear mixed-integer programming model (MINLP). The objective is to maximize the annual operating profit of the VPP. It is worth mentioning that the model is applied to a large irrigation system using real data on consumption and power generation, exclusively renewable. In addition, different scenarios are analyzed to evaluate the variability of the operating profit of the VPP with and without intraday demand management as well as the influence of the wholesale electricity market price on the model. In view of the results obtained, the model that integrates the management of the water-energy binomial increases the self-consumption of renewable energy and saves electricity supply costs.

Multistage stochastic programming modeling for farmland irrigation management under uncertainty.

Farmland management and irrigation scheduling are vital to a productive agricultural economy. A multistage stochastic programming model is proposed to maximize farmers’ annual profit under uncertainty. The uncertainties considered include crop prices, irrigation water availability, and precipitation. During the first stage, pre-season decisions including seed type and plant density are made, while determinations of when to irrigate and how much water to be used for each irrigation are made in the later stages. The presented case study, based on a farm in Nebraska, U.S.A., showed that a 10% profit increase could be achieved by taking the corn price and irrigation water availability uncertainties into consideration using two-stage stochastic programming. An additional 13% profit increase could be achieved by taking precipitation uncertainty into consideration using multistage stochastic programming. The stochastic model outperforms the deterministic model, especially when there are limited water supplies. These results indicate that multistage stochastic programming is a promising method for farm-scale irrigation management and can increase farm profitability.

Drivers of Agricultural Diversity in the Contiguous United States

The spatial heterogeneity of vegetation types on a landscape has been linked to multiple ecosystem functions, including habitat for wildlife and pollinators, water cycling, human aesthetic values, and nutrient cycling. Although agricultural land uses are sometimes combined into a single unit when quantifying landscape heterogeneity, diverse cropping systems are a valuable alternative to near-monocultural croplands and contribute more strongly to ecosystem service provision, including services such as pest regulation and carbon sequestration that are of direct interest for agriculture. The USDA Cropland Data Layer was used to characterize crop diversity across the contiguous US for 2008-2018. Percentage of each crop type, along with non-crop uses such as forest and development, were calculated for each 4km PRISM climate data grid cell. To better understand the drivers of crop diversity, Random Forest modeling was used to assess the importance of climate, soils, and irrigation for patterns of crop effective richness for the contiguous United States, stratified by USDA Land Resource Region. The models explained 57-89% of the variation in maximum crop diversity, with irrigation being by far the most important explanatory variable in regions where it was employed. The drivers of change from 2008 to 2018 were less clear. Random Forest models explained only 20-60% of the change in agricultural diversity over the eleven-year period; both soil and climate properties were important, with no clear dominant drivers. Potential crop effective richness was greater than actual across the entire region studied, but substantial increases would require irrigation. Major changes in agricultural systems and infrastructure may be necessary to increase agricultural diversity at large spatial extents, and declining availability of water for irrigation could threaten the agricultural systems that are now most diverse.

Study some optical properties of different total suspended solids in media filters by using He–Ne laser

The drip irrigation emitter is a small mechanical device which is designed to dissipate pressure and constantly discharge a small, uniform flow of water. Partial and total clogging of emitters is closely related to the quality of the irrigation water. Physical factors for water quality include all inorganic materials such as sand, silt and clay; the filtration of the irrigation water is essential in order to avoid blockages damage of the small passage emitters, drippers, sprayers and sprinklers. This is a mechanical water treatment and it is achieved by the installation of main filtering devices (filters) at the control head of the irrigation systems. Sand–gravel media filters are particularly suitable for water with high suspended solid content. The precision agriculture database generally includes irrigation facilities, water availability and planning of other inputs. The science of remote sensing RS is usually restricted to methods that detect and measure electromagnetic energy including visible and non-visible radiations that interact with surface materials and the atmosphere. A new multispectral optical sensor system has been designed and developed for measuring total suspended solid (TSS) concentration in polluted water. In this study, the optical sensing system has been designed for measuring scattered radiation from water samples from media filters at the irrigation systems. This study aims to measure the peak of optical properties at transmission and absorption intensities of irrigation water samples. Three different concentration levels of TSS are 286.8, 270 and 290 mg/l. It was noticed that high values were 4240 and 3880 for absorption intensities to Zaffaran media and Misr bank media at wavelength 632.8 nm.

Salt Flushing, Salt Storage, and Controls on Selenium and Uranium: A 31‐Year Mass‐Balance Analysis of an Irrigated, Semiarid Valley

AbstractSalinity, selenium, and uranium pose water‐quality challenges for the Arkansas River in southeastern Colorado and other rivers that support irrigation in semiarid regions. This study used 31 years of continuous discharge and specific conductance (SC) monitoring data to assess interannual patterns in water quality using mass balance on a 120‐km reach of river. Discrete sampling data were used to link the SC records to salinity, selenium, and uranium. Several important patterns emerged. Consumptive use reduced discharge by a median value of 33% and drove corresponding increases in salinity and uranium concentrations. Increased water availability for irrigation from rainfall and upstream snowpack in 1995–1999 flushed additional salinity and uranium into the river in 1996–2000; average annual total dissolved solids (salinity) concentrations increased 25%, and loads increased 131%. Smaller flushing events have occurred, sometimes lagging an increase in water availability by about one year. The pattern indicates flushing of salts temporarily stored, evaporatively concentrated, or of geologic origin. Mobilization of selenium from the reach was minor compared to salinity and uranium, and net selenium removal from the river was suggested in some years. Several processes related to irrigation could be removing selenium. The results provide context for efforts to improve water quality in the Arkansas River and rivers in other semiarid regions.

ACC-deaminase producing plant growth promoting rhizobacteria and biochar mitigate adverse effects of drought stress on maize growth.

Availability of good quality irrigation water is a big challenge in arid and semi arid regions of the world. Drought stress results in poor plant growth and low yield; however, the rhizobacteria, capable of producing 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC)-deaminase are likely to improve crop growth and productivity under drought stress. Similarly, biochar could also ameliorate the negative impacts of drought stress. Therefore, this pot experiment was conducted to evaluate the role of ACC-deaminase producing plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) alone and in combinations with timber-waste biochar in improving maize growth under drought stress. The ACC-deaminase producing rhizobacteria, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterobacter cloacae, Achromobacter xylosoxidans and Leclercia adecarboxylata were studied along with two rates (0.75 and 1.50% of the soil weight) of biochar under three moisture levels i.e., normal moisture, mild drought stress and severe drought stress. The E. cloacae in conjunction with higher rate of biochar produced a significant improvement i.e., up to 60, 73, 43, 69, 76 and 42% respectively, in grain yield plant-1, photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, chlorophyll a, total chlorophyll and carotenoids contents of maize as compared to the control under mild drought stress. Similarly, A. xylosoxidans with higher rate of biochar also enhanced grain yield plant-1, photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, chlorophyll a, total chlorophyll and carotenoids contents of maize up to 200, 213, 113, 152, 148 and 284%, respectively over control under severe drought stress. In conclusion, combination of ACC-deaminase containing PGPR, A. xylosoxidans and biochar (0.75%) proved an effective technique to improve maize growth and productivity under drought stress.

Using Water Balance to Analyse Water Availability for Irrigation with Upraising Surface Temperature ( Acase Study Pasar Baru Barrage in Cisadane Watershed

This research aims to determine the water balance between water demand and availability at Pasar Baru Barrage. Pasar Baru Barage supply irrigation water for 22.441 ha. Irrigation water requirements related to temperature, evapotranspiration, and precipitation. Higher air temperature in a region, influents the water requirement. This research was also conducted to see the effect of the rise in temperature of the water needs. The water requirement is calculated based on the needs of irrigation and domestic water to the raw water. For irrigation water needs calculated by planning a cropping pattern in one year in this study, it was planned to plant rice twice and once crop, evapotranspiration was calculated using the Penmann Modification method, so that water requirement in the intake area was obtained multiplying the area of irrigation. Calculation of water availability by using FJ Mock method, the maximum water availability value is 11.75 m3 / second. so that the water balance is obtained by the surplus deficit water balance method. After conducting this study, it can be seen that the air temperature in the cisadane weir of the new market is increasing from 1985 to 2018. The average temperature increases by 0.740C, the minimum air temperature increases by 0.8 0 C and the maximum increases by 0.2 0 C, the average evapotranspiration value decreases by 0.15 mm / day, while the average water availability decreases from the year 1985 to 2018 at 1.8 m3 / second, the amount of water needed for irrigation was 5.57 liters/ second/ha. The calculation of the water balance in the river is based on a reliable discharge, the result is a deficit every year from 1985 to 2018. So there is a need for Pasar Baru weir to overcome the lack of irrigation water every year, based on discharge data available at Pasar Baru weir from 2013 to 2015, it can seen that the water balance has a surplus every year, the water balance deficit only occurred in July 2015 of 0.3 m3 / sec. The largest water balance occurred in March 2014 amounting to 656.97 m3 / sec. The results of this study can be used as a reference in planning and developing integrated water resources buildings especially in the Cisadane watershed and the Ciliwung-Cisadane river basin in general.

Effect of Deficit Irrigation on Yield and Water Use Efficiency of Maize at Selekleka District, Ethiopia

Irrigation water availability is diminishing in many areas of the Ethiopian regions, which require many irrigators to consider deficit-irrigation strategy. This study investigated the response of maize (Zea mays L.) to moisture deficit under conventional, alternate and fixed furrow irrigation systems combined with three irrigation amounts over a two years period. The field experiment was conducted at Selekleka Agricultural Research Farm of Shire-Maitsebri Agricultural Research Center. A randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications was used. Irrigation depth was monitored using a calibrated 2-inch throat Parshall flume. The effects of the treatments were evaluated in terms of grain yield, dry above-ground biomass, plant height, cob length and water use efficiency. The two years combined result indicated that net irrigation water applied in alternate furrow irrigation with full amount irrigation depth (100% ETc AFI) treatments was half (3773.5 m3/ha) than that of applied to the conventional furrow with full irrigation amount (CFI with 100% ETc) treatments (7546.9 m3/ha). Despite the very significant reduction in irrigation water used with alternate furrow irrigation (AFI), there was insignificant grain yield reduction in maize(8.31%) as compared to control treatment (CFI with100% ETc). In addition, we also obtained significantly (p<0.001) higher crop water use efficiency of 1.889 kg/m3 in alternate furrow irrigation (AFI), than that was obtained as 0.988 kg/m3 in conventional furrow irrigation (CFI). In view of the results, alternate furrow irrigation method (AFI) is taken as promising for conservation of water (3773.5 m3/ha), time (23:22'50" hours/ha), labor (217.36 USD/ha) and fuel (303.79 USD/ha) for users diverting water from the source to their fields using pump without significant trade-off in yield.

Exploring synergies in the water-food-energy nexus by using an integrated hydro-economic optimization model for the Lancang-Mekong River basin

The Water-Food-Energy nexus study identifies developmental challenges and trade-offs present along the transboundary river basins. Intensive reservoir development for hydropower production impacts existing actors in the Lancang-Mekong River Basin. Concerns from these stakeholders highlight three major trade-offs that occur between hydropower and irrigation (HP-AG), hydropower and fisheries (HP-F), and irrigation and fisheries (AG-F). Dam construction has an impact not only on power production but also on ecosystems and ultimately the livelihood of people. In this study, we quantify the effects of reservoir operation on hydropower generation, irrigated crop production and fisheries yield in the Tonle Sap lake through a novel hydro-economic model at the whole basin scale. Our main finding is that trade-offs can be turned into synergetic opportunities. First, the dam operation can increase water availability for irrigation without severely harming hydropower production, raising irrigated crop revenue by 49% and reducing crop losses during droughts by 30%. Second, eco-friendly management increases fisheries yield by up to 75%, but decreases both irrigated crop production (−48%) and power production (−17%). Reservoirs can, therefore, benefit the whole basin by releasing more water in months with high irrigation demand (April and December) and by minimizing the adverse effects of flow fluctuations on the livelihood of farmers and fishers living downstream. Our results also reveal the overlooked trade-off between irrigated agriculture and fisheries. Cross-sectoral and transboundary partnerships should strengthen stakeholder participation in decision-making. Local solutions such as enhanced reservoir operation can respond to the broader global issue of natural resource trade-offs and sharing. Our alternative narrative enhances the dialogue about fair and efficient water use among Mekong riparian countries.