Irrigation Supply and Demand, Land Use/Cover Change and Future Projections of Climate, in Indus Basin Irrigation System, Pakistan

Naveed Ahmed, Haishen Lü, Shakeel Ahmed, Ghulam Nabi, Muhammad Abdul Wajid, Aamir Shakoor and Hafiz Umar Farid
Additional contact information
Naveed Ahmed: State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, College of Hydrology and Water Resources, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Haishen Lü: State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, College of Hydrology and Water Resources, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Shakeel Ahmed: Project Management Office (PMO) for Punjab Barrages, Rehabilitation & Modernization Projects, Punjab Irrigation Department, Lahore 39571, Pakistan
Ghulam Nabi: Center of Excellence in Water Resources Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore 54890, Pakistan
Muhammad Abdul Wajid: Department of Irrigation and Drainage, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Faisalabad 38000, Pakistan
Aamir Shakoor: Department of Agricultural Engineering, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan 66000, Pakistan
Hafiz Umar Farid: Department of Agricultural Engineering, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan 66000, Pakistan

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 16, 1-19

Abstract: Sustainable management of canal water through optimum water allocation is the need of the modern world due to the rapid rise in water demand and climatic variations. The present research was conducted at the Chaj Doab, Indus Basin Irrigation System (IBIS) of Pakistan, using the WEAP (Water Evaluation and Planning) model. Six different scenarios were developed, and the results showed that the current available surface water is not sufficient to meet crop water demands. The Lower Jhelum Canal (LJC) command area is more sensitive to water scarcity than the Upper Jhelum Canal (UJC). The future (up to 2070) climate change scenarios for RCP 4.5 and 8.5 showed a decrease in catchment reliability up to 26.80 and 26.28% for UJC as well as 27.56 and 27.31% for LJC catchment, respectively. We concluded that scenario 3 (irrigation efficiency improvement through implementation of a high efficiency irrigation system, canal lining, reduction and replacement of high delta crops with low delta crops) was sufficient to reduce the canal water deficit in order to optimize canal water allocation. Improvement in the irrigation system and cropping area should be optimized for efficient canal water management.

Keywords: climate change; Indus Basin; irrigation canal; water demand; water supply; water evaluation and planning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/8695/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/8695/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:16:p:8695-:d:608163

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().