A Decision Support System for Micro-Watershed Management in India

The improvement of economic conditions in developing countries like India is crucially dependent on improvement in agriculture. Crop production depends on the volume of irrigation water and its temporal distribution, water quality, solar radiation, precipitation and a host of soil properties. All these factors vary from crop to crop. In view of the above it is imperative for increasing agricultural production that scarce water resources should have efficient management. It is necessary to evolve an innovative approach for water distribution and management. This paper presents an integrated DSS model for a Micro-Watershed Management System (MWMS) for generating alternative water allocation and agricultural production scenarios for a semi-arid region. The model is tested with data from the Radharamanpur micro-watershed (364 Ha. area) in the Bankura district of West Bengal state in India.