Optimization of Harvesting During Critical Water Resource Management Using Zone-Based Prioritization Techniques

Abstract

The coastal region of Karnataka has a major crop of arecanut which depends on the rainfall. The coastal Karnataka experiences a heavy rainfall which is irregular with respect to the time, quantity and places. This irregular rainfall contributes to the ground water levels. Due to the irregular rainfall and ground water level challenges the farmers find it difficult to set a scheduled irrigation system for the arecanut plantations. The farmers have the face various situations related to the health of the arecanut plantations like fungal illness, root illness, yellow-leaf diseases and basal stem rot diseases etc. A fixed schedule for the arecanut irrigation to the entire plantation area is difficult due to the scarcity of water during the hot summer season. It is very much essential to optimise the irrigation system in such condition. The paper highlights the need of division of the entire arecanut plantation land area into zones for achieving the optimised irrigation system during hot and dry seasons. This optimised irrigation system manages the entire irrigation activity by considering the current soil moisture, growth stage of the plant, reason for the various diseases and the methods to avoid the same. The paper suggests the optimized technique to be adopted which plans the occurrence. . The paper also suggests how to preserve arecanut yield and plant health while conserving water. The paper suggests optimized irrigation system based on actual field data on reservoir levels and soil moisture. By studying the above conditions, the optimization framework distributes the irrigation quantities based on water availability, zone weight, and crop-stage need. The paper also gives the comparative statement with proposed optimized irrigation system against the traditional uniform scheduling. The optimized method is expected to maintain over 93% yield by cutting the overall water use by almost 30%, and dramatically reduced the incidence of diseases linked to excessive moisture.