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Implication of Land Degradation on Crop Productivity - Some Evidences from Saline Areas in North-West India

2004; Indian Society of Agricultural Economics; Volume: 59; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

0019-5014

Ashim K. Datta, C. de Jong, M.T. Rajashekharappa,

Water-Energy-Food Nexus Studies

The twin problems of water logging and soil salinity are threatening the sustainability of agricultural production in large parts of Haryana. In 1985, a study conducted by UNDP/FAO concluded that almost 400,000 ha of land were threatened. About 13 years later, in 1998, the Drainage Master Plan of the Government of Haryana (Government of Haryana, 1998) revealed that almost 500,000 ha of highly productive land were under threat of degradation because of the rising water table. This is about a quarter of the irrigated lands in the state. The threat is more serious because the groundwater in most of the endangered area is brackish or saline. The area under critical water table depth (within 3m of the surface) is expected to increase dramatically in the coming decades if no curative measures are taken (Datta and de Jong, 2002). Currently, the water table is within 1 to 2 metres of the surface in about 50,000 ha. A substantial part of this area is situated in the Rohtak-Sonepat-Gohana area. In this area, water logging and secondary salinisation have become serious problems. To counteract this adverse development, research done in the framework of the IndoDutch Operational Research Project (ORP) has revealed that a combination of surface and sub-surface drainage, supplemented by improved irrigation management is the most appropriate strategy. The objective of this paper is to establish the suitable methodology to capture the trends of water logging and salinity and to quantify the economic loss especially in agriculture due to water logging and salinity in North-West India. The study also assesses the scope of salinity control measures at the farm level.