Link Canals Research Articles

Utility of Space Borne Multispectral Data for Soil and Land Irrigability Assessment — A Case Study from Southern Part of India

Information about the nature, extent and spatial distribution of soils of the Krishna‐Pennar link canal command area was derived through systematic visual interpretation of standard false colour composite (FCC) prints from the Indian Remote Sensing satellite (IRS‐1B) Linear Imaging Self‐Scanning Sensor (LISS II) at 1:50,000 scale. Soils were classified upto family level and evaluated for their suitability for irrigation using the standard criteria. A significantly large area (2.03 lakh ha) consisting of 51.5% of the total study area was found to be suitable, with moderate soil limitations (class 2), for irrigation purposes. About 1.10 lakh ha of land was suitable with severe limitations (class 3), 0.33 lakh ha area of land was marginally suitable (class 4) and the rest of the area covered under class 6 land extending over an area of 0.30 lakh hectares was found unsuitable for irrigation purpose.

Tons Hydel project - method adopted for construction of link canal : V. K. Brahmankar, Irrigation & Power Journal, 51(3), 1994, pp 9–10

Tons Hydel project - method adopted for construction of link canal : V. K. Brahmankar, Irrigation & Power Journal, 51(3), 1994, pp 9–10

An Assessment of Warabandi (Irrigation Rotation) in Pakistan: A Preliminary Analysis

A significant feature of Pakistan's agriculture is that it is served by the Indus irrigation system, which is one of the largest contiguous irrigation systems in the world. The system comprises of the Indus River and its tributaries, three major storage reservoirs, 19 barrages/headworks, 43 canals, and 12 link canals and 43 canals covering about 43,000 chaks or village settlements. The total length of the canal system is about 40,000 miles with over 80,000 water courses, field channels ' and ditches running for another million miles. About 100--106 million acre feet (MAP) of surface irrigation supplies are diverted annually into the canal system. Only 60 percent of this water reaches the farmgate due mainly to low efficiency in the delivery of water. The historical review of the area, production and yield trends shows that agricultural production in the past has increased mainly due to expansion in irrigated acreage while the contribution of changes in yields has been insignificant. In general, agricultural production can be increased by either expanding the irrigated cropped area or by raising the crop yields. It is highly unlikely that Pakistan will be able to satisfy the food needs of the rapidly increasing population through yield increases alone. This means that there ia a need to increase the irrigated cropped area through additional water supplies and by improving the efficiency of water use through using the water resources in a scientific manner.

Common Behavioral Trends in Alluvial Canals and Rivers

Two trends in the adjustment of shape and slope of alluvial canals and rivers are identified. Using the concept of divergence from Lacey, these trends are quantified and reveal that the width, depth, and slope of alluvial channels are interdependent. The relationships evolved provide a simple procedure for the design of alluvial canals covering a wide range of bed material characteristics, sediment transport rate, and resistivity to bank erosion. Evaluation of the response of rivers to hydraulic structures and design of river link canals are also rendered easy with the aid of the two newly quantified trends.

Modeling efficient water allocation in a conjunctive use regime: The Indus Basin of Pakistan

Efficient resource use where ground‐ and surface waters are used conjunctively may require special policies to rationalize the interaction between water use by farmers and the response of the stream aquifer system. In this paper, we examine alternative policies for achieving more efficient conjunctive use in the Indus Basin of Pakistan. Using a simulation model which links the hydrology of a conjunctive stream aquifer system to an economic model of agricultural production for each of 53 regions of the basin together with a network model of the flows in river reaches, link canals, and irrigation canals, we have studied the joint effect of various canal water allocation and associated private tube well tax or subsidy policies on overall system efficiency. The results suggest that large gains in agricultural production and employment are possible, given more efficient policies.

Optimal Conjunctive Use Model for Indus Basin

A mathematical model is presented as a tool in facilitating the analysis and optimization of the conjunctive use of surface and ground water resources of a subsystem of the Indus Basin irrigation system in Pakistan. The objective of the study is to determine the size of the canal system, the surface reservoir, and the ground water pumping facilities, such that when the system is operated optimally, the capital, operation, and maintenance costs of meeting given irrigation water requirements are minimized. A mathematical model of the Marala Ravi link canal subsystem, which is uncoupled from other areas of the large, complex Indus Basin irrigation system, is developed. The mathematical programming problem is large scale and must be decomposed into subproblems. The subproblems are solved by dynamic programming whereas the design or outer problem is solved by an efficient direct search technique.

An Ecological Survey of Land Use and Soil Erosion in the West Pakistan and Azad Kashmir Catchment of the River Jhelum

This survey is a by-product of the Indus Waters Agreement between India and Pakistan, which provided for a reallocation of the waters of the major left bank tributaries of the Indus. Before partition these rivers provided the water for a unified irrigation system in the Punjab. Partition left the headwaters of the major tributaries in India and created a political frontier which cut across both the rivers and the canal system. Under the Indus Waters Agreement India retains control and use of the waters of the southern tributaries, mainly the Sutlej, Beas and Ravi. The supplies from these rivers, which Pakistan would lose, will be replaced by storage on the remaining major tributary, the Jhelum, and possibly later by other storage on the Indus itself. Thus the major and immediate 'replacement work' for Pakistan (apart from the complex link canals required to transport Jhelum water to areas previously supplied by the Ravi, Sutlej and other rivers) was a storage dam on the Jhelum. The obvious site was at Mangla. The consulting engineers appointed to design this major structure recognized at an early stage that silt derived from sediment eroded in the catchment above the reservoir site would produce serious difficulties. Silt loads in the Jhelum and its tributaries had been recorded by the engineers for a number of years. These recorded silt loads were likely seriously to decrease the useful life of the reservoir if (as seems unlikely) the rate of erosion did not increase. Accordingly the consulting engineers recommended a study of watershed management measures which might be taken in the catchment and which might reduce substantially the rate of sedimentation. In July 1959 the authors' firm was appointed by West Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) to carry out this study: the report was presented in August 1961.

The Nile River System

has evolved, not merely to build and run the link canals, but to create a great electric power grid, to organize industries, to build a new capital city in Pakistan. On the Indian side, a handsome new capital city has already been undertaken named Chandrigar, designed by the famous architect and planner, Le Courboisier; to visit it is to see again the vistas that were Washington in 1810. Indeed, there is much in newly inde pendent India which evokes thoughts of how our United States was or could have been ten to twenty years after our Constitution was established. Lucidly for us, the Canadian boundary did not bisect many rivers} the Great Lakes lie on a crest and in water terms are an easy natural boundary. Yet we have problems analogous to the Indus, and the large scale ones are the Columbia-Kootenay basin and the Chicago diversion of Lake Michigan into the Illinois-Mississippi. From these analogies, one may understand and sympathize with the political leaders, the planners, the bankers who are trying to work out a peaceful solution of the re-adjustment of the waters of the five rivers of the Punjab, comprised between the Indus on one extreme and the Sutlej on the other, all emerging from the tremendous mountains to the north, and bounded on the west by low mountains. On the east there is no natural boundary; the Great Plain of northern India extends flat as a table a thousand miles to Calcutta at the head of the Bay of Bengal. In that plain it is pure luck that the Indus-Sutlej group flows to the Arabian Sea and Karachi, and that the Jumna-Ganges group flows to the Bay of Bengal and Calcutta. It is all capable of management and re-arrangement on the largest scale, and every government of India for hundreds of years has been a planner and builder of great canals and waterworks in that plain. The Indus problem is an old affair in a new and exasperating dress.