Abstract

Agriculture can not exist without water. At present the old practice of arbitrary use of water in irrigation sector has become unethical. Odisha is an agrarian state in east coast of India. For better yield of crops, quality of water is intricately related to the aquifer geometry, ground water flow regime and its quality. Coastal Odisha is having an area of 14700 sqkm and demography of 1.26 million. The land has mostly water logged alluvial crop land, deciduous forests or sandy dunes with an astomosed channels of hexa-deltaic rivers. The edaphic factors demand improvement of quality of ground water which is brackish. The physicochemical properties like pH value, electrical conductivity, inorganic constituents (Na⁺, Mg⁺⁺, Ca⁺⁺, K⁺) of ground water used for lift irrigation have been studied. Data from thousand number of wells from the study area are covered in various seasons during the years 2009-2014 along with the yield of the major crop, i.e., paddy. The indices and parameters like EC, SAR, KI, ESP, SSP, MAR, PI and alkalinity of the ground water are determined to show its fitness for irrigation in the area. The different water management policies and present activities are discussed so that the ground water can be used efficiently for irrigation in coastal Odisha.

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