IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/endesu/v15y2013i2p385-405.html

Reallocating water from canal irrigation for environmental flows: benefits forgone in the Upper Ganga Basin in India

Author

Listed:
  • Upali Amarasinghe

  • Vladimir Smakhtin
  • Luna Bharati
  • Ravinder Malik

Abstract

This paper assesses the potential loss of irrigation benefits in reallocating water from irrigation to meet requirements for environmental flows (e-flows) in the Upper Ganga Basin (UGB) in northern India. The minimum requirement for e-flows in the UGB is 32 billion cubic meters (BCM), or 42 % of the mean annual runoff. The current runoff during the low-flow months falls below the minimum requirement for e-flows by 5.1 BCM. Depending on irrigation efficiency, reallocation of 41–51 % of the water from canal irrigation withdrawals can meet this deficit in minimum e-flows. The marginal productivity of canal irrigation consumptive water use (CWU), estimated from a panel regression with data from 32 districts from 1991 to 2004, assesses the potential loss of benefits in diverting water away from crop production. In the UGB, canal irrigation contributes to only 8 % of the total CWU of 56 BCM, and the marginal productivity of canal irrigation CWU across districts is also very low, with a median of 0.03 USD/m 3 . Therefore, at present, the loss of benefits is only 1.2–1.6 % of the gross value of crop production. This loss of benefits can be overcome with an increase in irrigation efficiency or marginal productivity. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Upali Amarasinghe & Vladimir Smakhtin & Luna Bharati & Ravinder Malik, 2013. "Reallocating water from canal irrigation for environmental flows: benefits forgone in the Upper Ganga Basin in India," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 385-405, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:endesu:v:15:y:2013:i:2:p:385-405
    DOI: 10.1007/s10668-012-9385-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10668-012-9385-1
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10668-012-9385-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George, Biju & Malano, Hector & Davidson, Brian & Hellegers, Petra & Bharati, Luna & Massuel, Sylvain, 2011. "An integrated hydro-economic modelling framework to evaluate water allocation strategies II: Scenario assessment," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(5), pages 747-758, March.
    2. Amarasinghe, Upali & Shah, Tushaar & Turral, Hugh & Anand, B. K., 2007. "India’s water future to 2025-2050: Business-as-usual scenario and deviations," IWMI Research Reports H040852, International Water Management Institute.
    3. S. Mahendra Dev, 2008. "India," Chapters, in: Anis Chowdhury & Wahiduddin Mahmud (ed.), Handbook on the South Asian Economies, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Rupert Quentin Grafton & Qiang Jiang, 2011. "Economic effects of water recovery on irrigated agriculture in the Murray‐Darling Basin," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 55(4), pages 487-499, October.
    5. Luna, Bharati & Lacombe, Guillaume & Gurung, Pabitra & Jayakody, Priyantha & Hoanh, Chu Thai & Smakhtin, Vladimir U., 2011. "The impact of water infrastructure and climate change on the hydrology of the Upper Ganges River Basin," IWMI Research Reports 137493, International Water Management Institute.
    6. Smakhtin, Vladimir & Anputhas, Markandu, 2006. "An assessment of environmental flow requirements of Indian river basins," IWMI Research Reports H039610, International Water Management Institute.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Amarasinghe, Upali A. & Shah, Tushaar & Malik, R. P. S., 2009. "India\u2019s water futures: drivers of change, scenarios and issues," IWMI Books, Reports H042030, International Water Management Institute.
    2. Bharati, Luna, 2012. "Moving towards environmentally sustainable water allocation in South Asia," Conference Papers h045043, International Water Management Institute.
    3. George, Biju & Malano, Hector & Davidson, Brian & Hellegers, Petra & Bharati, Luna & Massuel, Sylvain, 2011. "An integrated hydro-economic modelling framework to evaluate water allocation strategies I: Model development," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 98(5), pages 733-746, March.
    4. Amarasinghe, Upali A. & Shah, Tushaar & Malik, R.P.S., 2010. "India’s water futures: drivers of change, scenarios and issues," Book Chapters,, International Water Management Institute.
    5. Bharati, Luna, 2012. "Moving towards environmentally sustainable water allocation in South Asia," IWMI Conference Proceedings 210738, International Water Management Institute.
    6. Amarasinghe, Upali A. & Muthuwatta, Lal & Smakhtin, Vladimir & Surinaidu, Lagudu & Natarajan, R. & Chinnasamy, Pennan & Kakumanu, Krishna Reddy & Prathapar, Sanmugam A. & Jain, S. K. & Ghosh, N. C. & , 2016. "Reviving the Ganges water machine: potential and challenges to meet increasing water demand in the Ganges River Basin," IWMI Reports 246417, International Water Management Institute.
    7. Robyn Johnston & Vladimir Smakhtin, 2014. "Hydrological Modeling of Large river Basins: How Much is Enough?," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 28(10), pages 2695-2730, August.
    8. Liam Byrnes, 2014. "The cost of failing to install renewable energy in regional Western Australia," Energy Economics and Management Group Working Papers 9-2014, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    9. Goodness C. Aye & Stephen M. Miller & Rangan Gupta & Mehmet Balcilar, 2016. "Forecasting US real private residential fixed investment using a large number of predictors," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 1557-1580, December.
    10. Rouhi Rad, Mani & Haacker, Erin M.K. & Sharda, Vaishali & Nozari, Soheil & Xiang, Zaichen & Araya, A. & Uddameri, Venkatesh & Suter, Jordan F. & Gowda, Prasanna, 2020. "MOD$$AT: A hydro-economic modeling framework for aquifer management in irrigated agricultural regions," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 238(C).
    11. Abdulla S. Al-Khulaifi, 2013. "Exports and Imports in Qatar: Evidence from Cointegration and Error Correction Model," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 3(9), pages 1122-1133, September.
    12. Carmody, Pádraig, 2009. "An Asian-Driven Economic Recovery in Africa? The Zambian Case," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 1197-1207, July.
    13. Pradhan, Jaya Prakash, 2005. "Different Shades of American Protectionism," MPRA Paper 16004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Deakin, Simon & Sarkar, Prabirjit & Singh, Ajit, 2010. "An End to Consensus? The (Non) Impact of Legal Reforms on Financial Development," MPRA Paper 53352, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Ravallion, Martin, 2010. "The Developing World's Bulging (but Vulnerable) Middle Class," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 445-454, April.
    16. Jiang, Qiang & Grafton, R. Quentin, 2012. "Economic effects of climate change in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 10-16.
    17. Lakatos, Csilla & Fukui, Tani, 2014. "The Liberalization of Retail Services in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 327-340.
    18. Kumar, M. Dinesh & Trivedi, K. & Singh, O. P., 2009. "Analyzing the impact of quality and reliability of irrigation water on crop water productivity using an irrigation quality index," IWMI Books, Reports H042636, International Water Management Institute.
    19. David Brady & Michael Spence, 2010. "Leadership and Growth : Commission on Growth and Development," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2404, April.
    20. Toru Tachibana, 2015. "Inundation behavior of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake tsunami in the Taro District, Miyako City, northeast Japan, as inferred from directional traces," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 75(3), pages 2311-2330, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:endesu:v:15:y:2013:i:2:p:385-405. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.