CROP WATER REQUIREMENT AND CROPPING SYSTEM IN PROJECT PLANNING WITH REFERENCE TO KOLAR PROJECT

Abstract

The basic objective of this study is to observe the variations that have occurred in the crop water requirements of a suggested cropping system due to changes in the micro climatic conditions in the command area of the Kolar project. The initial planning of any irrigation project begins with the computations of crop water requirements of a proposed cropping pattern for the command area of that project. Usually climatological approaches: are used to determine the crop water requirements using historical climatologic data available at the nearest site. On the basis of these. crop water requirements, the net irrigation requirement and gross irrigation requirement considering certain project efficiency are calculated. Thus the computed gross water requirements are useful to fix the discharging capacities of the canal systems and ..the -storage capacities of dams/reservoirs in the cases of storage irrigation project. As the crop water requirements are closely related with the climatic conditions, so any variation that will take place in the climate will directly affect the crop water use and ultimately the discharging capacity of the canal system and the area to be irrigated. Considering this concept, an attempt is made to collect the climatological data, from 1984 to 1999 of the Hoshangabad station, which is the nearest I.M.D. station of the command area of the Kolar project, .and this data is processed to compute the crop water requirement.