IWRA Proceedings

AbstractIn the dry areas, water, is the limiting factor in improving agriculture production. Maximizing water production is therefore a better strategy for on-farm water management under such condition. Water productivity is an important issue in arid and semi arid regions that are already experiencing a shortage of water. The productivity of crops is commonly measured in related to inputs such as capital, land, energy and labour or fertilizer but in recent years, increasing attention to water consumption. Conventional water management guidelines, designed to maximize yield per unit area, need to be revised for achieving maximum water productivity instead. The purpose of this paper is takes a general look at water use by plants and concept of water productivity. In other section discussed the opportunities for increasing water productivity with various factor of management and to lay down some of concepts and complexities in management analyses related to increasing water productivity. We have to be very careful in identifying the scale at which we measure water productivity. The issue of the scale of analyses is fundamental. As we move from one scale to another, the potential utility of a cubic meter of water changes and this potential can increase the water productivity with reusing return flows, adding storage facilities and use of groundwater aquifers and pounds of farmers fields through gravity and pump diversions to increase irrigation water area.