IRRIGATION & CANAL PROJECTS
Irrigation & Canal Projects
In India, irrigation includes major and minor canals from Indian rivers, groundwater well-based systems, tanks, and other rainwater harvesting projects for agricultural activities. Of these groundwater systems is the largest. In 2013–14, only about 36.7% of total agricultural land was reliably irrigated. And remaining 2/3 cultivated land in India is dependent on monsoons. 65% of the irrigation in India is from groundwater.
According to a 1991 report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, India has an irrigation potential of 139.5 million hectares (62.7% of which is surface water), including 58.5 mha from major and medium river-fed irrigation canal schemes, 15 mha from minor irrigation canal schemes and 66 mha from groundwater well fed irrigation. However, this number is only an estimate because reliable data on water resources is lacking in most areas; only 68% of India’s irrigated land has access to electricity for pumping equipment.
Canals are man-made waterways that carry free, calm surface flow under atmospheric pressure. They can be thought of as rivers, or artificial rivers. They have a series of dams and locks that create reservoirs of low speed current flow. These reservoirs are referred to as slack water levels and often just called levels. A canal can be called a navigation canal when it parallels a natural river and shares part of the latter’s discharges and drainage basin, and leverages its resources by building dams and locks to increase and lengthen its stretches of slack water levels while staying in its valley.