Water Requirement for Different Crops in North Eastern Coastal Plain Zone of Odisha

A study was conducted at College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar during 2014-15 to find out the water requirement of North Eastern Coastal Plain zones of Odisha. Water plays a vital role for every living being. Water is and will become a scarce natural resource in the near future. A clear understanding of the water balance is essential for exploring water saving measures. Due to economic and environmental constraints on new water resources, developments, and increasing municipal and industrial needs, agriculture’s share of water use is likely to go down day by day. Water resources management is due to the increase of the population and water demand, especially in India, which is classified as arid and semi- arid regions. In India with such large population is facing unique challenges of water scarcity due to diverse geographical, climatic and Geo-environmental conditions apart from unequal distribution of freshwater resources. On an average North Eastern Coastal Plain of Odisha receives about 1568 mm of rainfall, which is uneven, erratic and uncertain in nature. Therefore, efficient and effective water management strategies are essential for meeting the increasing water demand of agricultural, domestic, industrial and environmental sectors. Agriculture is the one of important sector, which utilizes around 60% of fresh water resources. Agriculture is the backbone of India. So it is needed to manage the water in the field of agriculture efficiently. Keeping the above in view, the following objectives are selected for this study: 1. Estimation of reference evapotranspiration for North Eastern Coastal Plain of Odisha using weather data of the respective localities. 2. Screening of methods to estimate reference crop evapotranspiration close to FAO – 56 Penman-Monteith method. 3. Assessment of crop water requirement for major crops grown in agro-climatic zones of Odisha. Among all the methods, correction factor for Penman-Monteith and 1982 Kimberly-Penman methods approach to one in most of the zones. The FAO-24 Penman (c=1), Turc and Priestly-Taylor methods give more diversion from FAO-56 Penman-Monteith method. The correction factor ranges from 0.759 to 1.261 all over the state. Water requirement was found out for all the major crops of this zone for all the seasons.