Quantification of surface water resources in hilly watersheds of southern Orissa : a case study

摘要

The majority of the population in southern Orissa of Koraput district is tribal dominated and dependent on subsistence rainfed agriculture. The district experiences frequent intense storms during monsoon period and also suffers from severe droughts due to failure of monsoon in some years. It has 35% of.net sown area under different sources of irrigation including 17% major source, 2% minor source, 1% lift irrigation, 0.6% wells and 14% other sources (Sudhishri et al. 2006). Jhola lands being locatedin the lowest topo-sequence are bestowed with natural perennial streams in Koraput district. The management of Jhola lands for increasing their productivity is essential for reducing poverty in the region (Eswaran and Dumanski 1998). It is documented that due to crop diversification, paddy grain yield of 2.54 t ha~(-1) can be obtained as against district's average yield of 1.72 t ha~(-1) in Jhola lands (Dass et al. 2005). The maximum possible advantage has not been achieved yet'in this region due to poor management of available water resources. Scientific management of water resources along with crop diversification may further augment the scope of increasing the productivity. In order to address this issue, quantification of the temporal and spatial status of the water resources is of paramount importance. Based on this information, a feasible package of practices can be derived suiting for the tribal farmers of the region. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to quantify the temporal and spatial surface water resources in two hilly watersheds viz. Kokriguda and Chullapari in southern Orissa of Koraput district.