Journal of Water Management

Despite spectacular development of irrigation in the country, the niggardly low efficiencies of irrigation projects pose a serious challenge. Deficiencies in design, operation and maintenance of irrigation channels, as well as the excess water losses in conveyance, application and waste outflows in the command areas are some of the contributing factors for the above situation. Therefore, efficient and judicious utilisation of water by appropriate lining of irrigation channels, release of irrigation water based on scientific irrigation scheduling and crop water requirements, and minimisation of outflow losses are required. A study was carried out on the evaluation of water demand-delivery pattern in selected field irrigation channel (FIC) commands of Upper Krishna Project (UKP), Karnataka during 1999–2002. The results revealed that the excess flows at the head end of the FICs ranged from 27.3 to 211.1 per cent, while the excess irrigation at the field level varied from 11.0 to 25.7 per cent during various seasons than the required. The water demand-delivery ratio was in the range of 0.3–0.8 and 0.8–0.9 at the FIC head and the field level, respectively. The conveyance losses ranged from 10.9 to 13.0 per cent and the outlet losses varied between 5.6 and 54.3 per cent of the inflows. Similarly, the excess quantities of water applied to the various crops were in the range of 10.6–28.9 per cent. If these losses were effectively minimised, an additional area of 15 to 49 ha could have been put under light irrigated crops (groundnut, cotton, sunflower, maize, bajra, sorghum etc.) as envisaged in the UKP cropping pattern.