Irrigation Supply and Demand, Land Use/Cover Change and Future Projections of Climate, in Indus Basin Irrigation System, Pakistan

Abstract

Sustainable management of canal water through optimum water allocation is the need of the modern world due to the rapid rise in water demand and climatic variations. The present research was conducted at the Chaj Doab, Indus Basin Irrigation System (IBIS) of Pakistan, using the WEAP (Water Evaluation and Planning) model. Six different scenarios were developed, and the results showed that the current available surface water is not sufficient to meet crop water demands. The Lower Jhelum Canal (LJC) command area is more sensitive to water scarcity than the Upper Jhelum Canal (UJC). The future (up to 2070) climate change scenarios for RCP 4.5 and 8.5 showed a decrease in catchment reliability up to 26.80 and 26.28% for UJC as well as 27.56 and 27.31% for LJC catchment, respectively. We concluded that scenario 3 (irrigation efficiency improvement through implementation of a high efficiency irrigation system, canal lining, reduction and replacement of high delta crops with low delta crops) was sufficient to reduce the canal water deficit in order to optimize canal water allocation. Improvement in the irrigation system and cropping area should be optimized for efficient canal water management.

Assessing the impact of future climate scenarios on crop water requirements and agricultural water supply across different climatic zones of Pakistan

“…These zones are the main agricultural regions of the country, and the food demand stress in these regions is enormously increasing, which increases the water demand in these regions (Qureshi, 2011;Rafiqul Islam, 2022;Hasan and Abed, 2023;Haseeb et al, 2023). This aligns with research showing heightened evapotranspiration in arid agricultural areas due to warming (Ahmed et al, 2021). However, the challenges extend beyond these regions, with significant rising trends across zones, underscoring the systemic nature of this issue.…”

An Analytical Study for Assessing Water Productivity in Pre‐ and Post‐Rehabilitation Period of Rural Tank System

“…While looking at the geological conditions, the head and middle reaches are classified as hard rock area and the tail reach land comprises soft clay to the desired depth. is leads to good groundwater recharge and the water table remains high even during summer, which instigated the farmers to purchase land in the tail reach of the tank command [10,[34][35][36]. e head and middle reach each account for 26.5% of the sample responses.…”