Sustainable management of agricultural lands using GIS: A Spatio-Temporal analysis of irrigation water quality in Vadodara taluka

Irrigated lands contribute significantly to the world agriculture output and food supply. The benefits of irrigation have resulted in lower food prices, higher employment and more rapid agricultural and economic development. Irrigation represents an alteration of the natural conditions of the landscape by extracting water from an available source, adding water to fields where there was none or little before, and introducing man-made structures and features to extract, transfer and dispose of water. Knowledge of irrigation water quality will be essential for sustainance of the agriculture and it has been always critical in understanding management of the quality for sustaining long-term productivity so as it meets the needs of the population. Geographic Information System (GIS) has the capability for capture, storage, manipulation, analysis and retrieval of multiple layer resource information occurring both in spatial and non spatial forms. Moreover, in GIS it is possible to create and visualize a host of development and management scenarios by varying the key parameters influencing the targeted objectives. GIS has capability of conducting spatial searches and overlays and association of the spatial data with the non-spatial data to eventually generate new information. The present study incorporates GIS technique to identify the hazard zones on the basis of salinity and sodium for Vadodara Taluka. It maps, identifies and analyzes spatiotemporal changes and pattern of irrigation water quality for Vadodara Taluka for a period of 2004–2008 with the help of Spatial Analyst Tool in Arc GIS.