ABSTRACT
From an international perspective, groundwater tapping in irrigated agriculture has been exponentially growing for about 40 years, thanks to the generalization of mechanized techniques for drilling and pumping (Shah et al, 2003). Furthermore, this evolution has been achieved in a lot of collective irrigation schemes where irrigation has been traditionally practised from surface water (Chohin-Kuper et al, 2002). This development, known as ‘conjunctive use’ as both surface water and groundwater are withdrawn by users, could be seen as a consequence of a reduction in the availability of surface resource or of the degradation of water services and/or the increase in water tariffs. This chapter looks at ways of improving water management within this type of irrigated scheme in the context of its becoming more and more common all over the world.
