A Numerical Simulation Model for Conjunctive Water Use in Basin Irrigated Canal Command Areas

Basin irrigation is a common practice for growing water intensive crops like paddy. Irrigation water, when supplied through a network of canal, is often found to be inadequate to meet the crop water requirement uniformly throughout the irrigated command area. The most deprived are the cultivators of the lower end of the command, who resort to supplementing the crop water requirement by extractions from the ground. This practice is noticeable in irrigation system without a proper canal water distribution schedule and often result in water logging in the upper command regions contrasted with excessively depleted groundwater table in the lower commands. The present contribution attempts to model the conjunctive water use of such a canal irrigated command using physically based numerical sub-models for simulating surface flow, groundwater flow and the interlinking process of moisture movement through the unsaturated zone for a given quantum of supplied water and crop water demand. Individual models are validated to demonstrate their applicability in an integrated framework. Various plausible conjunctive water use scenarios are tested on a hypothetical command area practising basin irrigation to identify the best possible water distribution strategy under given constraints.