The indiscriminate cultivation of water-intensive crops in the catchment area of Himayat Sagar in Telangana, India, is diminishing precious rainwater harvesting efforts through the excessive use of groundwater, an ICRISAT modeling study has revealed. \u200b<\/p>\n
\nThe findings point to a need for the improved governance of water resource sustainability which remains a critical challenge, particularly in semi-arid regions where despite an increase or no change in rainfall, there is a steady decline in the stream flow of catchments.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe observed that nearly 50% of the water harvested by hydrological structures helps to increase groundwater recharge. However, crop area expansion using groundwater for irrigation has depleted stream flow and groundwater storage in the Himayat Sagar catchment.”<\/p>\n
\n“The annual groundwater recharge in the catchment is able to fully meet the irrigation requirement during high rainfall years, 50% during dry years and 30% during normal years,\u201d said Dr Rajesh Nune, Hydrologist, IDC.<\/p>\n
\nResearchers at the ICRISAT Development Center (IDC) studied historical data on climate, land use, watershed structures, and groundwater levels available with the Telangana government organizations and conducted field surveys to gather data on groundwater utilization for different cropping systems during the rainy (kharif) and post-rainy (rabi) seasons.<\/p>\n
\nThe data was analyzed using an integrated hydrological model called \u2018Modified Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT).\u2019 \u200b The approach combines SWAT\u2019s rainfall-runoff model with a groundwater model for each of the 19 sub-catchments in Himayat Sagar. The model is structured to capture dynamic changes in climate variability, land use, and watershed development structures in the catchment.<\/p>\n
\nAdaptation to climate variability in the future<\/p>\n
\nThe ICRISAT-led study also explored the future impact of potential climate and catchment changes on stream flow and groundwater storage in the Himayat Sagar catchment.<\/p>\n
\nThe model explored factors such as expanding groundwater irrigated areas, watershed structures, and rejuvenation of existing tanks under the Telangana Government\u2019s \u2018Mission Kakatiya\u2019 in the future.<\/p>\n
\nNotably, the State of Telangana is expected to witness the highest rainfall in September instead of August by the end of this century in light of rising temperatures (0.60 – 0.90 C every 30 years) and climate change.<\/p>\n
\nICRISAT\u2019s findings reveal that despite the increase in average rainfall, a decline in stream flow is expected, considering variations in seasonal rainfall in the months of May and November.<\/p>\n
\nCritically, the study observed that catchment changes would have a more significant impact than climate change (rainfall and temperature) in the future.<\/p>\n
\nUnder the \u2018Mission Kakatiya Program,\u2019 village tanks were desilted, rejuvenated, and interlinked with the drainage network. According to model predictions, this mitigation strategy captures excess runoff, enhances groundwater recharge for upstream users, and helps control flood damage to downstream users during high-intensity rainfall events.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt is also necessary to have a better water resource governing policy for the administration of village tanks, especially during the dry years, for the benefit of downstream users,\u201d said Dr Rajesh Nune.<\/p>\n
\nEfficient planning of cropping systems based on available resources<\/p>\n
\nICRISAT\u2019s modeling has been designed to inform better public policy leading to improved natural resource management and enhanced farming productivity.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe analytical framework ICRISAT has employed will help policymakers to take appropriate measures to monitor the cultivation of water-intensive crops (paddy, sugarcane, maize, etc.) and guide farmers to diversify their crops while ensuring efficient use of water resources in their region,\u201d said Dr Rajesh Nune.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cUnderstanding the impact of climate variability on stream flow and groundwater recharge along with land use change will help water resource managers adopt better landscape management practices in the catchments for current and future water requirements,\u201d concluded Dr Sreenath Dixit, Head, IDC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The indiscriminate cultivation of water-intensive crops in the catchment area of Himayat Sagar in Telangana, India, is diminishing precious rainwater harvesting efforts through the excessive use of groundwater, an ICRISAT modeling study has revealed. \u200b The findings point to a need for the improved governance of water resource sustainability which remains a critical challenge, particularly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":230652,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3248,64,26740,49],"class_list":["post-230651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized","tag-hussainsagar","tag-hyderabad","tag-icrisat","tag-telangana"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/hussainsagar.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greattelangaana.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}