Sustainability and resiliency of regional groundwater through enhanced conveyance and application efficiencies of irrigation water

Groundwater depletion is a significant sustainability challenge at Rasoolpur Jatan village of Muzaffarnagar district, India. This experiment was conducted in farmer’s field of study area to enhance the conveyance and application efficiency of irrigation water through various water management technologies. Sugarcane is the major crop in the study area, and irrigation is being done through earthen field channels. If irrigation is given at 60 and 65% application efficiency through earthen field channels, then the groundwater table would decline at 0.59 m/yr. and 0.38 m/yr, respectively. To avoid conveyance and seepage losses; pipe distribution network was used with 79% application efficiency. In this case groundwater table would rise by 0.13 m/yr. and when irrigation was given through a drip system with E a = 90%, groundwater table would rise by 0.37 m/ yr. Groundwater modeling was done to simulate the future groundwater behavior and give the alternate course of management options for sustainable groundwater use strategy. The projected groundwater levels for 2030 under four scenarios are 213.84, 217.20, 225.39, and 229.37 m, respectively. Results suggested that the declining trend of groundwater could be arrested to a greater extent in the study area by enhancing the efficiency of irrigation water by adopting modern irrigation methods (drip and sprinkler system) or farmers should grow high value crops other than sugarcane which have less water requirement.