Question

Explain the tank irrigation practised in India​

Answer 1

Answer:

There are as many obstacles to tank irrigation as there are benefits, due to their large number and the differences in water demand, managerial experiences, and investment needs for maintenance. During low-rainfall years, the tanks would store small quantities of water, and the chain of tanks, except the first tank, would receive little supply. Using 40 years rainfall data, it was estimated that in 5 out of 10 years the tanks will be experiencing deficient supply; in 3 years the tanks will fail; in 1 year the tanks will have surplus storage, and in 1 year the tanks will be getting full supply. The effect of the same would be more profound in non-system tanks resulting in a reduction in irrigated area over the years. Since 90% of the tanks are non-system tanks, the effect on area reduction would be more significant. Besides rainfall variation and tank filling, other factors such as siltation, encroachment, channel obstruction, etc., have an effect on the tank-irrigated area. The data on rainfall and area irrigated by tanks over the years show that the influence of northeast monsoon rains on the tank-irrigated area in the state was greater than the southwest rainfall. The correlation coefficient between the area irrigated by tanks and the rainfall was found to be between 0.20 and 0.30, indicating that apart from rainfall there are several other factors which have contributed to the overall decline in tank performances over the last few decades (Palanisami et al., 1997).

Other factors include heavy siltation in the tank bed, encroachment of tank beds, poor functioning of the sluices and surplus weirs of the upper tanks, severe encroachment in the supply channels, deforestation, erosion in catchments, conflicts over intertank water distribution, etc. Siltation might reduce tank water storage capacity by up to 30%, although there are cases when heavy siltation has completely eliminated the storage capacity (Palanisami and Suresh Kumar, 2004). It is reported that some tanks function only in normal/excess-rainfall years and not so in poor/low-rainfall years.

Though irrigation tanks have considerable merit in improving environmental, ecological, and socioeconomic conditions of the people who are depending on it, the declining performance of tanks and associated livelihood consequences and coping strategies have not been rigorously examined, making it difficult to assign developmental and research agenda. The key requirements for achieving developmental objectives are to examine the performance of tanks and the adaptation and coping strategies adopted by the rural farm households under different production environments. Keeping these issues in view, this chapter examines the impact of climate variability on tank irrigation and tank-based agriculture in Tamil Nadu.

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Answer 2

Explanation:

The Tank irrigation is more in the rocky plateau area of the county, where the rainfall is uneven and highly seasonal. The Eastern Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Interiors of Tamil Nadu and some parts of Andhra Pradesh have more land under tank irrigation.