IRRIGATION SCHEDULING USING GEOMATICS TOOLS

Abstract

Food is the basic and compulsory requirement of the human being. It is expected that demand for food crops will double during the next 50 years with limited land and water resources. Production of food requires water. Global estimates indicates that irrigated agriculture sector consumes about 85% of the available water. Further it is expected that in this sector will witness increase water consumption about 20% by the year 2025. The requirement of water increases as the production increases. Proper utilization of water resource is required means scheduling of water for irrigation or irrigation scheduling. Studies carried out in the water deficit area indicated that proper irrigation scheduling may sprout water and energy saving to about 35 percent. The present trend of irrigation has caused 25% depletion in ground water reserve by 2010. Research shows that increasing trend in demand of water in irrigation may lead to total depletion of the ground water table within 50 years. More enhancements required in techniques of irrigation scheduling as the data associated with the estimation of scheduling of water are not sufficient and reliable. Irrigation scheduling techniques lacks in sufficient and reliable data. The problem of insufficient and non reliable data can better be solved by the help of remote sensing and GIS. Irrigation scheduling using remote sensing and GIS causes 12.5% savings of water.