Regional Variation in Agricultural Water Demand and Water Availability in Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract

Water is one of the important and scarce natural resource that triggers the growth of crop production. But water availability varies from the region to region depending upon the rainfall, geological formation etc. Due to growing demand of water for various uses and erratic rainfall,the water availability for crop production declining very fast in different regions of Uttar Pradesh. Water scarcity is becoming a serious challenge for government, researchers, economist and policy makers. Much effort is being made to reduce water use by crops and produce ‘more crop per drop’. Present study was an attempt to find out region-wise consumptive water demand for crop production and water availability. The study was based on secondary data. The CropWat model was used to find out the crop water requirement. Results suggests that total water demand for Eastern region, Central region, Bundelkhand region and Western region and it was found to be 70478, 38366,13790, 64703 MCM, respectively. Out of total crop water requirement, the highest share comes from wheat, rice and sugarcane in Eastern and Central region. In the Eastern region the share of crop water requirement for wheat, rice (k) and sugarcane was estimated to be 92.93 per cent of the total crop water requirement, whereas in case of Central region it was 87.64 per cent to total crop water demand. In Western region share of water requirement for growing wheat, sugarcane and rice (k) to total crop water requirement was estimated to be 88.79 per cent. During 2013-14,the annual water availability was found more than the crop water demand for Eastern, Central and Bundelkhand region, whereas in case of Western region water demand For crop production was more than the water supply from all the sources.