Irrigation and Water Use Efficiency

Abstract

Overview South Asia, one of the world’s most densely populated and poorest regions, also has the highest rates of irrigated agriculture. Irrigated and rain fed crops coexist in every village, with 58 per cent of South Asia’s cultivated land being rain fed, and its irrigation rate standing at around 40 per cent. Irrigation is essential for food security and economic development in South Asia, but it can be made more efficient by improving the ways in which water is used, by developing the management system to collect and allocate surface water and by judiciously regulating groundwater irrigation.The major precondition for pricing groundwater is the assignment of rights to groundwater sources. This may, however, be difficult in the case of shared aquifers. Land reform can lower the barriers to cooperation between citizens. p Development of water markets cannot proceed in isolation from the institutional and technological context of irrigation in developing countries. Community organizations have a potentially important role to play in advising, educating and managing the allocation of water among users.