Farm pond in semi-arid region of coastal Gujarat: Is it a source of supplementary irrigation or ground water irrigation?

Farm pond has been introduced as a supplementary source of irrigation in a coastal village of semi-arid region in Gujarat. Nevertheless, hardly a few framers have made provision to divert rainwater into farm ponds. Nearly half of the farm pond farmers have either deepened farm ponds or dugout wells inside farm ponds. Consequently, farm ponds are acting as groundwater irrigation source. Resultantly, crop productivity and farm income almost doubled because of change in cropping pattern. Groundnut replaced Kharif Jowar(f). However, introduction of commercial crops, especially Groundnut increased irrigation water requirement. Owing to high variability in amount of annual rainfall and intensity, farm ponds hardly get enough water for supplementary irrigation in years of low rainfall when irrigation water requirement is higher. Rapid growth of dugwells, and horizontal bores inside farm ponds and dugwells are posing serious threat to sustainable use of groundwater in the coastal village. It may invite sea water intrusion and resource use confl icts in future. Therefore, farmers need to be educated with regards to use of farm pond as a source of ground water recharge instead of ground water irrigation. Finally, the study highlights some research issues which attract immediate attention of the scientific community.