A study on dwindling agricultural water availability in irrigated plains of Pakistan and drip irrigation as a future life line.

Agriculture constitutes the backbone of Pakistan's economy by contributing 21.4% to national gross domestic product. 74% of cultivated area is irrigated (14.6 million hectares), out of 22 million hectares. Per capita water availability in Pakistan is continuously on decline as it stood at 1000 cubic meter per person per year in 2012-13, against 5600 cubic meter per person per year at the time of partition. Agricultural water availability is dwindling with each passing year, particularly due to reduction in Pakistan's water storage capacity, increasing population and climate change. Pakistan owns world's largest irrigation system as total length of canals in Pakistan is 56073 km, while the total length of water courses is 1.6 million km. About, 106 million acre feet water is diverted to canals, of which about 15% is lost in main and branch canals, 8% water is lost in distributary minors and 30% water is lost in water courses and 30% in the field, thus making the efficiency of irrigation system just over 41%. Drip irrigation also known as trickle irrigation which involves dripping water onto the soil at very low rates (2-20 liters per hour) constitutes the future life line for Pakistan's irrigated agriculture. But high initial cost in the range of Rs.110000-120000 per acre and lack of awareness has hampered the adoption of this technique. Government needs to shoulder the responsibility by subsidizing the initial cost for drip irrigation to ensure the food security of teeming millions in times to come. Pakistan is an agricultural country with an area of 97 percent of all the freshwater that is potentially available 21.4 million hectares under cultivation, of which more than for human use. Freshwater lakes and rivers contain an 74% of area is irrigated (14.6 million hectares) (1). Pakistan estimated 105 000 km or around 0.3 percent of the world's is ranked at 4 position in terms of largest irrigated area freshwater (2). The total usable freshwater supply for th worldwide and that too with world's biggest canal ecosystems and humans is about 200 000 km of water irrigation network (2). Irrigated agriculture is totally which is less than 1% of all freshwater resources. dependent upon fresh water resources for successful Pakistan's surface flow in the Indus basin system is cultivation of crops. The total volume of water on earth is I45 MAF annually. However, the Western streams that about 1.4 billion km (cubic kilometers). The volume of flow basically during the monsoons bring 5 to 10 MAF 3