Bharat R Sharma

International Water Management Institute | IWMI · India Office-New Delhi

Groundwater is the single largest source of water for irrigation and domestic use in India. Climate change further exacerbates the threat of depletion, reducing food security and increasing the vulnerabilities of resource users. Governance is complicated by externalities associated with its attributes as an invisible and fluid resource which create...

In spite of being water surplus, the 600⁺ million population of the large Ganges basin spread over 1.09 m km² in South Asia is water insecure, poor, and highly exposed to water-induced stresses of floods and droughts. The contribution from the glaciers to the streamflow is ~70% in the Himalayan catchments though spatially distributed quantification...

Groundwater (GW) depletion and recurring floods have become a major concern among researchers and planners across the world. To rejuvenate stressed aquifer and moderate flood impacts, a modified version of managed aquifer recharge (MAR) consisting of a cluster of ten recharge wells (RWs) embedded in a community pond with an area of 2625 m 2 and uti...

Pragmatic, cost-effective, socially inclusive and scalable solutions that reduce risks from recurrent cycles of floods and droughts would greatly benefit emerging economies. One promising approach known as Underground Transfer of Floods for Irrigation (UTFI) involves recharging depleted aquifers with seasonal high flows to provide additional ground...

Pragmatic, cost-effective, socially inclusive and scalable solutions that reduce risks from recurrent cycles of floods and droughts would greatly benefit emerging economies. One promising approach known as Underground Transfer of Floods for Irrigation (UTFI) involves recharging depleted aquifers with seasonal high flows to provide additional ground...

In the Gash Delta of Eastern Sudan, spate irrigation (flood-recession farming) contributes substantially to rural livelihoods by providing better yields than rainfed dryland farming. However, spate irrigation farmers are challenged by the unpredictability of flooding. In recent decades, the number of farmers practicing spate irrigation has decrease...

This study on Water Productivity Mapping of Major Indian Crops explores two primary questions: Are the existing cropping patterns in India in line with the natural water resource endowments of various regions? Are these cropping patterns sustainable from a water-use perspective? The broad findings of the study indicate that there are regions in Ind...

In the Ganges basin, 8268.6 km² of irrigation command area is waterlogged following monsoon rains. In this study, vertical drain (VD) (L × D, 7 × 1 m) filled with drainage gravel (6.5 m) and coarse sand (0.5 m) is installed in farmer’s agricultural field to minimize the duration of seasonal waterlogging and tested in Mukundpur village, Vaishalli Di...

Climate induced extreme events such as floods and droughts are often disastrous in incidences and affects Indian economy often. Low per capita surface water storage (225 m³/capita¹), few sites for additional storages facilities and depleting groundwater aquifers reduce the resilience of the communities to alleviate the day-to-day short age and larg...

Historically, flooding is the most common environmental hazard worldwide, and also one of the most threatening to communities. Hydrological modeling of large river catchments has become a challenging task for water resources engineers due to the complexity of collecting and handling both spatial and nonspatial data, such as rainfall, gauge-discharg...

Floods and droughts, along with over-exploitation of groundwater, are major issues of concern across much of the developed and developing world. This report presents an approach – referred to as ‘Underground Taming of Floods for Irrigation’ (UTFI) – for tackling these challenges in a novel and integrated manner. This approach involves interventions...

Water consumption and landholding size are major determinants of agricultural development in Indo-Gangetic basin (IGB). Though high attention has been given to irrigation policy and land consolidation in the three riparian countries of Pakistan, India and Nepal, the effects of water consumption and land size to farmers’ welfare in the IGB are still...

Agriculture is the largest consumer of water and total evapotranspiration from global agricultural land could double in next 50 years if trends in food consumption and current practices of production continue. There is an imminent need to improve the water use efficiency or more importantly the water productivity. This chapter explains in detail th...

Floods and droughts, along with over-exploitation of groundwater, are major issues of concern across much of the developed and developing world. This report presents an approach – referred to as ‘Underground Taming of Floods for Irrigation’ (UTFI) – for tackling these challenges in a novel and integrated manner. This approach involves interventions...

Continuous monitoring of soil physical quality is essential in determining sustainability of land use in natural and managed ecosystems particularly; mountainous systems such as the Ethiopian highlands, where soil deterioration and degradation can become major threats to ecosystem and productivity. This study focused on assessment of soil physical...

Impact of climate change on the hydrology of the Ganges River Basin (GRB) is simulated by using a hydrological model – Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). Climate data from the GCM, Hadley Centre Coupled Model, version 3 (HadCM3) was downscaled with PRECIS for the GRB under A1B Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) scenarios. The annual av...

It is a Joint Study Report submitted to International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) BRAC-Dhaka IWMI-New Delhi. We analyzed how farmers were adapting to this changing climate and to a changing social and economic context in and out of the villages. We found that many farmers change their behaviors and adapt their agricultural practices th...

The bulk of the water productivity (WP) literature has focused on static cross-sectional analysis with inadequate attention given to long-term, time series analysis, either at the country level or at a lower level of aggregation (e.g., district). The present study fills this gap by analyzing WP in Bangladesh using panel data of 21 districts over 37...

This study assesses the changing consumption patterns of rice in Bangladesh and its implications on water demand by 2030. Rice dominates food and water consumption patterns in the country; it contributed to 72% of the total calorie supply from food, and 81% and 79% of the total cropped and irrigated area, respectively, in 2010. Forecasts using time...

s) to photocopy or make single electronic copies of the paper for their own personal use, including for their own classroom use, or the personal use of colleagues, provided the copies are not offered for sale and are not distributed in a systematic way outside of their employing institution. Abstract The topography of the Ganges basin is highly var...

The continuous monitoring of hydrological and meteorological variables is a prerequisite for informed water resources management. However, in many developing countries, such as Ethiopia, observational networks remain very scarce. Even those in existence are rarely adequately maintained and many have deteriorated over the past decades. One possible...

The continuous monitoring of hydrological and meteorological variables is a prerequisite for informed water resources management. However, in many developing countries, such as Ethiopia, observational networks remain very scarce. Even those in existence are rarely adequately maintained and many have deteriorated over the past decades. One possible...

Climate change, water scarcity and food security are becoming increasingly important topics for the growing population of Africa. Due to a general lack of water resources in semi‐arid and arid zones, water is an increasingly scarce input in agriculture. The impact of climate change exacerbates this situation further. Even in areas with abundant wat...

Climate change is one of the drivers of change in the Ganges River Basin, together with population growth, economic development and water management practices. These changing circumstances have a significant impact on key social and economic sectors of the basin, largely through changes in water quantity, quality and timing of availability. This pa...

The irrigation services are often state-subsidized in agrarian economies for the enhancement of agricultural productivity while they also target poverty alleviation. The agriculture- dependent states of India offer representative examples of undervalued irrigation services mainly sourced by canal networks. However, canal irrigation is nowadays lagg...

This paper describes one component of the research that International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and partners are undertaking as part of the challenge program on water and food (CPWF) Nile Basin Development Challenge (NBDC). The objective of the NBDC is to increase understanding of how to plan successful rainwater management strategies (RMS)...

The current research analysis is focused on the identification of the agricultural water use and land scaling effects to rural livelihoods in Indo-Gangetic basin (IGB) with emphasis to Bihar state. In particular, water use and landholding factors are widely acknowledged as major determinants of agricultural development and hence rural wealth in IGB...

In this article the authors assess the potential impacts of projected climate change on water, livelihoods and food security in the Basin Focal Projet basins. The authors consider expected change within the context of recently observed climate variability in the basins to better understand the potential impact of expected change and the options ava...

This article summarizes the results of water productivity assessment in 10 river basins across Asia, Africa and South America, representing a range of agro-climatic and socio-economic conditions. Intensive farming in the Asian basins gives much greater agricultural outputs and higher water productivity. Largely subsistence agriculture in Africa has...

Water use and landholding factors are widely acknowledged as major determinants of agricultural development in agrarian regions of the Indo-Gangetic basin (IGB). High attention is mainly given to irrigation policy while land is often apprehended through soil productivity aspects. However, the nexus between land scale and water consumption in respec...

The Indo-Gangetic Basin encompasses most of the fertile landholdings in South Asia. However, low agricultural productivity is observed in the four riparian countries-India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh-by nailing down rural welfare. Accusations are directed at the inability of water supply sector to ensure high productivity rates and security of...

The basins of the Indus and Ganges rivers cover 2.20 million km 2 and are inhabited by more than a billion people. The region is under extreme pressures of population and poverty, unregulated utilization of the resources and low levels of productiv-ity. The needs are: (1) development policies that are regionally differentiated to ensure resource su...

Improvements in water productivity (WP) are often suggested as one of the alternative strategies for overcoming growing water scarcity in India. This paper explores the potential improvements in WP of food grains at district level, which currently varies between 0.11 and 1.01 kilogram per cubic metre (kg/m3), in the 403 districts that account for 9...

Crop consumptive water use and productivity are key elements to understand basin water management performance. This article presents a simplified approach to map rice (Oryza sativa L.) water consumption, yield, and water productivity (WP) in the Indo-Gangetic Basin (IGB) by combining remotely sensed imagery, national census and meteorological data....

A detailed district and agro-ecoregional level study comprising the 604 districts of India was undertaken to (i) identify dominant rainfed districts for major rainfed crops, (ii) make a crop-specific assessment of the surplus runoff water available for water harvesting and the irrigable area, (iii) estimate the efficiency of regional rain water use...

As a part of the ongoing power sector reforms in India, the state of West Bengal is in the process of metering agricultural electricity supply. This paper presents a first cut assessment of this initiative. Results suggest that the majority of the pump owners benefit from the reforms in two ways: first by having to pay a lower electricity bill for...

Climate change is likely to pose additional threat to water resources of the Indo-Gangetic basin, which is already under pressure from growing population, urbanisation and industrialisation. This is visible in the form of retreating glaciers, temperature increase, enhanced anomalies in rainfall patters and frequency and severity of extreme events....

Understanding of crop water productivity (WP) over large scale, e.g., river basin, has significant implications for sustainable basin development planning. This paper presents a simplified approach to combine remote sensing, census and weather data to analyze basin rice and wheat WP in Indo-Gangetic River Basin, South Asia. A crop dominance map is...

This paper gives an overview of water resources, its availability and use, problems and constraints, the present and future challenges and the ensuing opportunities in water resource sector of one of the most populated river basins of the world; the Indus-Gangetic Basin. Large-scale development of water resources in the Indus Basin has led to the r...

In Pakistan, on-demand availability of groundwater has transformed the concept of low and uncertain crop yields into more assured crop production. Increased crop yields has resulted in food security and improved rural livelihoods. However, this growth has also led to problems of overdraft, falling water tables and degradation of groundwater quality...

In Pakistan, on-demand availability of groundwater has transformed the concept of low and uncertain crop yields into more assured crop production. In-creased crop yields has resulted in food security and improved rural livelihoods. However, this growth has also led to problems of overdraft, falling water tables and degradation of groundwater qualit...

The Indus, Gangetic and Yellow River basins have supported thriving agriculture economies from time immemorial. Of late, unplanned over-exploitation of their resources, especially groundwater, has raised concerns about the long-term hydrological sustainability of the irrigated agriculture in the region. This calls for a fresh look at the hydrogeolo...

Hoshiarpur district in the north-eastern part of state of Punjab, India is a region with ample groundwater potential. Variability in groundwater resources along with the existing caste system has given rise to two distinct patterns of groundwater access - shared wells and private, informal water markets. The sharing of groundwater in one study vill...

b.sharma@cgiar.org) International Water Management Institute, New Delhi / Colombo 1 Will there be enough water to grow enough food? Lack of water or access to water has emerged as constraint to producing food for hundreds of millions of people. Additionally, in the face of intense competition for water resources, the economic value of water in agri...