Chintapalli, S.M. 
  
2 PERFORMANCE INDICATORS OF IRRIGATION SYSTEMS 
Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the abilities of future 
generation to meet their own needs. Although the attention of irrigation engineers is currently captured by sustainability 
it is less elaborated on its meaning and what it stands for (Agarwal and Roest, 1996). The performance of irrigation system 
is a very complex aspect and a variety of indicators have been developed/proposed by various researchers (Rao, P.S. 1993, 
Seckler et al 1988, Bos and Nugteren 1990, Azzali and Menneti 1989). The indicators of sustainability have been defined 
as relative crop transpiration, degree of moisture saturation, annual change in soil water storage, soil moisture, salt 
concentration and its fluctuations followed by acceptable crop productivity (Agarwal and Roest, 1996). The indicators of 
agricultural performance include cropping intensity, cropping pattern and crop productivity. Rao, P. S., 1993, has broadly 
categorised the irrigation system performance into four sub-systems namely (1) water sub-system, (2) human sub-system, 
(3) economic sub-system and (4) environmental system. In water sub-system, three water based performance indicators are 
selected that can help rate the success in achieving crop production objective. They are productivity, equity and efficiency. 
Productivity performance is assessed by (a) area utilisation-defined by the ratio of the harvested and theoretically 
serviceable area i.e. culturable command area, (b) yield potential-absolute yield as well as relative yield, (c) irrigation water 
output-productivity per unit of water. Equity achievement is described by production distribution, flow distribution and 
of production and flow distribution. Under human system, the indicators are response capacity of farmers and farmers’ 
ith satisfaction. Environmental sub-system uses impact on environment in terms of water logging, soil toxicities and irrigation 
ies water quality as indicators. The economic sub-system emphasises the economic stability in the short and long run periods. 
ion 
ary 
the 3 AGRICULTURAL PERFORMANCE OF WATER COURSES IN BHAKRA IRRIGATION SYSTEM 
ely 
ite. In this study, multi spectral and multi temporal data data from Landsat and IRS satellites were analysed for the rabi seasons 
on (October - April) of five years namely 1986-87, 1989-90, 1992-93, 1995-96 and 1996-97. A set of indicators of the 
(e. agriculture performance in the command area of water courses were derived from satellite data analysis and applied to 
les evaluate the spatio-temporal changes as well as the sustainability in the agricultural performance. The Bhakra irrigation 
on system has a culturable command area of 12 mha, with five water service circles namely, Ambala, Kaithal, Hisar-1, 
ed Hisar-2 and Sirsa which are in turn divided into 13 divisions and 41 sub-divisions. Water course is the ultimate irrigation 
unit in the system and normally serves an area of about 400 ha. The index map of the Bhakra irrigation system and the water 
courses selected for the study are shown in figure 1. During rabi season wheat is predominantly cultivated followed by 
toria, mustard and bengal gram. 
3.1 Data analysis 
ge 
lt, Geo referenced data base was first created in polyconic projection with a pixel resolution of 30 metres using Survey of 
lis India topographic maps of 1:50000 scale. The digital data of each satellite overpass was first converted into radiance and 
od then registered into reference map base. The water course maps which were in the scale of 1:6000, were first registered to 
las the panchromatic data of IRS-1C of 6 metres resolution, and then registered to the main database of 30 metres resolution. 
he This facilitated more accurate registration of water course maps by minimising the gap between pre and post registration 
ity gross areas. Maximum likelihood classification was performed on the data of December and February/March to achieve 
od classification of wheat and non-wheat crops. Kappa coefficient was calculated for overall classes as well as for individual 
ng classes. The evaluation was done at two levels, one at total scene level and the other at water course level. Due to time and 
of logistic constraints it was not possible to carry out evaluation in each water course. Hence, two water courses were 
m randomly selected. In the evaluation at total scene level, 20 points for wheat and 10 points for non-wheat were selected at 
m random. At water course level 15-20 points for wheat and about 10 points for non-wheat were randomly selected. The 
is Kappa coefficient of accuracy for overall accuracy as well as for individual classes was found to be above 90 %. 
n- 
or 3.2 Agricultural performance of water courses 
he 
nt The agricultural performance of water courses can be explained by cropping intensity and crop condition across time and 
9, space. The differential performance of water courses in a given area can be attributed to various factors such as (1) 
es irrigation related and (2) others. Some of the irrigation related factors include the location of water course in the respective 
id source/parent canal, factors related to lining of water courses such as age of lining and extent of lining. Lining of 
nd watercourses in Haryana state has been going on since 1973. The purpose of lining is simply to reduce seepage losses and 
hence to improve the equity in water supply by increasing deliveries to tail-end users. The non-irrigation factors affecting 
  
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part B7. Amsterdam 2000. 265