Sustainable Agriculture Systems and Technologies

11Agricultural Water Footprint and Precision Management

V.K. Singh¹, G.A. Rajanna², V. Paramesha³, and Pravin Kumar Upadhyay⁴

¹ ICAR-Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, Hyderabad, Telangana, India

² ICAR-Directorate of Groundnut Research, Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh, India

³ Natural Resource Management Division, ICAR-Central Coastal Agricultural Research Institute, Old Goa, Goa, India

⁴ Division of Agronomy, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, Delhi, India

CONTENTS

1. 11.1 Introduction
2. 11.2 Water Footprints of India and World
3. 11.3 Analysis of Water Footprint in Agriculture
4. 11.4 Water Footprints of Agricultural and Horticultural Crops
5. 11.5 Precision Management of Water Resources
   1. 11.5.1 Adoption of Sensor‐Based Micro‐Irrigation System
   2. 11.5.2 Adoption of Micro‐Irrigation System
   3. 11.5.3 Modified Crop Establishment Techniques
      1. 11.5.3.1 Direct‐Seeded Rice
      2. 11.5.3.2 Scheduling Irrigation
      3. 11.5.3.3 Use of Polymers
      4. 11.5.3.4 Methods of Minimizing Evaporation from Soil
6. 11.6 Conclusion
7. References

11.1 Introduction

Water shortage is one of the biggest challenges fronting the world's 2.8 billion inhabitants in the near future, and almost 1.2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water (Chartres and Varma 2010). However, water scarcity has emerged as the major constraint to sustainable crop production, especially in arid and semi‐arid agro‐ecologies around the world (Simsek and Comlekcioglu 2011). India's per capita water supply has dropped ...