| Many people still believe that India’s irrigation water mainly comes from canal irrigation systems. While this may have been true in the past, recent research shows that groundwater irrigation has overtaken surface-water irrigation as the main supplier of water for India’s crops. Groundwater now sustains almost 60% of the country’s irrigated area. Even more importantly, groundwater now contributes more to agricultural wealth creation than any other irrigation source (see Fig. 1). groundwater use has increased largely because it is a democratic resource,’ available to any farmer who has access to a pump. Accessibility has led to widespread exploitation of the resource, by farmers grateful for a reliable irrigation-water source. In turn, this has led to... |
