Abstract
India is primarily an agrarian nation with major portion of population depending on agriculture for their livelihood. About 83% of the total available water resources in India are utilized for agriculture. Hence, it is necessary to assess the water resources availability, progressive development and utilization for sustainable agricultural yield. This can be done both spatially and temporally using analytical procedures and models for studying the rainfall patterns, river water flow and its storage. An attempt has been made, therefore, to study the existing cropping patterns and water resources availability in drought prone area of Narsapuram watershed of Anantapur district in India. The crop water requirements (CWR) for each of the existing cropping pattern is estimated using modified Penman method and information on existing water resources is obtained from the local government organizations. The correlation of existing ground water resources, its corresponding draft and the requirement of water for the existing cropping patterns have been studied, which revealed that the requirement of water for the existing cropping pattern is more than the water available in the Narsapur watershed of Anantapur district. Various thematic maps, prepared from IRS IC LISS III satellite imagery and SOI toposheet, were integrated to prepare a composite map showing the status of ground water development and to identify sites for construction of artificial recharge structures. It is recommended that groundwater potential be improved through this artificial recharging of water to the aquifers so that it can meet the requirement of water for existing cropping patterns. This ultimately leads to increase in the crop yield and in turn increases per capita income of this chronically drought prone area for sustainable development. Therefore, an attempt has been made to suggest measures for increasing the groundwater potential by means of artificial recharge and to suggest suitable cropping patterns based on the type of soils and seasons.