ISSN 2375-0936
African Journal of Water Conservation and Sustainability ISSN 2375-0936 Vol. 14 (3), pp. 001-011, March, 2026. Available online at www.internationalscholarsjournals.org © International Scholars Journals
Full Length Research Paper
Integrating Socio-Environmental Benchmarks for Sustainable Irrigation Management
Sanjay Sitaram Phadnis1* and Mukul Kulshrestha2
1Research Scholar, MANIT-Bhopal, and Executive Engineer, MP, Water Resources Department, Bhopal, India.
2Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology, MANIT Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India.
Accepted 13 September, 2025
It is a proven fact that the quantity and quality of available water resources have been recognized as limiting factors in development of most of the arid and semi-arid regions. The function of the conveyance and distribution systems and services should be providing sufficient water in a timely manner so that it can be used efficiently for crop production. Reliability, flexibility and efficiency are the keywords for a modernization plan. Optimal use of available surface and groundwater, in any canal command area would result in their better utilization by maximizing the benefits from the crop production and the environmentally sustainable development and management of water resources in an integrated and participatory approach. Irrigation sector is the highest water consumer; therefore it is a sector where performance assessment is necessary to ensure optimum utilization of water. The major system deficiencies are low canal carrying capacity, over utilizations of water in rabi irrigation, flooding irrigation practices, low yield per unit irrigated area, low-cost recovery in the Samrat Ashok Sagar irrigation project. This paper presents a need of benchmarking of major irrigation projects for socially and environmentally sustainable development in India based on integrated and participatory approach.
Key words: Benchmarking, participatory approach, environmentally sustainable development, water management.