ABSTRACT
Food production in India is largely dependent on irrigated agriculture. The increase in population and urbanization, in addition to climate change will have a significant impact on the available fresh water resources. This includes both surface and groundwater used for irrigation, domestic use and industrial purposes. Competition between water uses has increased in recent years, aggravating the ongoing water use conflicts in many regions across the world, and has become highly politicized, more so in India (Kreamer, 2013; Nagothu et.al, 2012). These conflicts will become intensive with climate change-induced water scarcity. With the federal structure of governance in India, it will become even more difficult to resolve the conflicts if common platforms for negotiations and policy dialogue are not established. There is an urgent need to improve the current water productivity (WP) levels in the country and manage water resources sustainably. A number of measures, including the large-scale drip irrigation projects were initiated by the Government of India in 2008, with the primary objective of improving WP. However, there are several data and technology gaps, and in the case of some crops, the basic data related to WP does not exist. Our study attempts to address some of data gaps in WP using data from field measurements in three southern states in India. The study also attempts to demonstrate the use of different types of WP measurements and their constraints. Water productivity plays a crucial role in modern agriculture that aims to increase yield production per unit of water used, both under rainfed and irrigated conditions. As part of the initiatives to introduce climate resilient water or crop management systems, measuring WP provides useful data to managers and farmers.
