Ensuring Water Security in the Gadana and Ramanadhi River Basins

Ensuring water security in the Gadana and Ramanadhi river basins through improved weather forecasting and irrigation water management

Objective

• More than 80% of available water is utilized in the Indian agriculture sector to grow crops and ensure food security. However, water scarcity is a major problem in several arid and semi-arid areas of our country. Especially, closer home, several districts in the southern part of Tamil Nadu face acute water problem. In light of this, the available water needs to be utilized with utmost efficiency. The proposed project here addresses this issue.

Description

• To ensure better utilization of water in agriculture, one needs to have better prediction of weather and better measurement of flows. Presently a study is being carried out near Sivasilam on the above lines, with funds from Department of Science and Technology., Four agricultural fields have been taken up for the study. One weather station is presently available in the agricultural field near Sivasilam temple., Presently 10 flumes are available for measuring flow in distributory canals. We would like to extend the study to four more agricultural fields in Ramanadhi basin and establish eight more weather stations (new). We would also like to establish ten more flumes in distributary canals in Ramanadhi basin and six more new river gauging sites.

Impact

• The project will develop the Gadana - Ramanadhi system as a live Hydrometeorological observatory and a model basin leading the state/nation in irrigation water management techniques. This will lead to improved water security and environmental conditions by better environmental stewardship in conjunction with the PWD, agriculture department and farmers. This can build resilience in agriculture towards climate change impacts.