The aim of this project is to investigate water availability and allocation issues in the Krishna Basin of India. The Krishna Basin has been identified by the International Water Management Institute as an international benchmark Basin. The Krishna Basin is the fourth largest river basin in India in terms of annual discharge (at 65 km³) and the fifth largest in terms of surface area (at 258,948 km²). It provides 73 million people with their water supplies. This Basin is interesting as it is nearly a closed basin (i.e., all the water available is fully allocated to some purpose for a large part of the year), crosses jurisdictional boundaries, experiences both spatial and sectoral demand pressures for more water and suffers from a number of environmental pressures.

The overall objectives of this project are to improve water productivity in the water scarce Krishna River Basin of India and to determine the implications of different water allocation scenarios for future water allocation options, food production and long-term resource sustainability.

The specific objectives of the project are:

• Characterization of the existing hydrologic flow regimes (including water availability and use) and the agricultural water productivity in three focus catchments (Musi, Malaprabha and Upper Bhima) within the Krishna Basin.
• Development of an appropriate detailed network model for analyzing water allocation policies in the three focus catchments, that would be capable of simulating changes to the allocation of water to agricultural, domestic and environmental uses and assessing the tradeoff between these uses that may lead to improved water productivity.
• Integration of an allocation model with an economic model to evaluate the sectoral and regional impacts of alternative allocation policies, with particular emphasis on improving the productivity of irrigation water and environmental outcomes.
• Development of a statewide water balance modeling framework for Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka using the WEAP model to analyze water supply and demand from competing uses within each state.
• Identification of opportunities to increase the productivity of water use in agriculture through the development of alternative water allocation scenarios in collaboration with key water resource managers and planners, in the three focus catchments and states.

Acknowledgements

The project is funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).