REAPPRAISAL OF WATER RESOURCES OF BADANALA IRRIGATION PROJECT, ORISSA

Abstract

Irrigation which is an artificial application of water to soil to supplement deficient rainfall to provide moisture for plant growth is one of the essential components required for agriculture development. Irrigation requires fresh water which is finite and small in quantity. Out of total volume of fresh water only 1% accounts for water in lakes and river. Natural river flow fluctuates a lot during monsoon and nonmonsoon season arise the necessity of regulation of flow. In India 80% of the annual precipitation falls just in four months. Furthermore, out of 8760 hours in a year, most of the precipitation is received in about 100 hours Badanala irrigation project is a one of the project in Orissa which stores and regulates the flow by means of reservoir. Success of any irrigation project depends upon proper planning, design and operation of the system. The main objective of the study is reappraisal of water resources of Badanala irrigation project. Reappraisal of a project is a multi objective study comprising of irrigation planning, design, operation and economic evaluation. The study has been carried out firstly by estimating crop water requirement by Blaney Criddle method and then subsequently finding net irrigation requirement and gross irrigation requirement of the project. Finding of Reservoir capacity of the project has been done by mass curve analysis, reservoir yield model and sequent peak method. Sediment distribution in reservoir for 50 and 100 years period with varying sediment rate has been estimated by empirical area reduction method. Reservoir operation which is basically a water balance of the system has been carried out by standard operating policy (SOP) and continuous hedging rule (CHR). Economic analysis which is required for testing of economic feasibility of any project is also a part of this study. Economic analysis is done by benefit cost ratio method and internal rate of return method. Crop optimization work for finding optimal cropping pattern is done by linear optimization technique using LINDO software. Effort has been made for the comparison of the results resulting from different methods and results from project report. Summary of the study and conclusion drawn has been included in the last chapter along with the limitations of the study.