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To assess the effect of planting density and irrigation in cashew (Anacardium occidentale L.) during its critical growth stages such as flowering and fruit set on, growth, yield, water-use efficiency and farm income, a field experiment was initiated in a split-plot design in 2011 at Puttur, Karnataka, India. The main plot consisted of three planting densities namely, 5 × 4 m, 6 × 4 m and 10 × 5 m. The irrigation treatments were imposed in subplots as, irrigation at 60% cumulative pan evaporation (CPE), at 40% CPE, at 20% CPE, irrigation once in 15 days, soil and water conservation technique, and control (without any irrigation or soil water conservation technique). The results indicated that the growth, raw cashew nut yield and net income during 5th and 6th year of plantation of cashew increased with increase in planting density per unit area. The average increase in nut yield under high density planting ranged from 75 to 81% compared to normal density planting. Irrigation using drip system from December to March at 20% CPE and 40% CPE was beneficial to increase the nut yield by 53.5% and 34.1% compared to control. The yield increase under soil and water conservation practice was 12.9%, and 59.7% under irrigation once in 15 days. The increased planting density was beneficial to increase the net income and benefit–cost ratio. The deficit irrigation practices were useful to increase the water-use efficiency in cashew. Widely spaced trees showed increased water-use efficiency compared to high-density planting. Overall, the study demonstrated the usefulness of increased planting density and appropriate irrigation practices to increase yield and net income from cashew orchards.

Rainfall deficits and erratic dry spells pose major challenges in rainfed ecosystem. In-situ moisture conservation practices (MCP) like ridge–furrow methods, improve soil moisture but are inadequate during 2–3 week dry spells at critical crop stages (flowering and maturity), leading to yield loss. Supplemental irrigation (SI) using an ex-situ rainwater harvesting (RWH) pond can mitigate these effects, but optimizing the pond design is challenging due to limited runoff and storage losses. This study aims to design RWH pond for small farm holders with a 1.0 ha area and evaluate its efficient use for SI during intermittent dry spells and critical crop stages. The design volume was estimated using the SCS-CN method based on daily rainfall data (1974–2010) for the northeast monsoon. A pond with a capacity of 487.5 m3, constructed for a 1 ha micro-watershed, was used to observe the runoff for design validation. The harvested runoff can be used as SI for a cultivable area of 0.4 ha, based on the watershed-to-cultivable area ratio. Statistical analysis of observed and estimated runoff data from 2011 to 2023 revealed a strong correlation (r = 0.87), confirming the pond design. Harvested rainwater, applied through micro-irrigation (rain gun) at a depth of 50 mm during moisture stress periods, significantly improved cotton productivity. The combined use of harvested rainwater and MCP increased yield in the range of 3.8 to 25.3%, improved rainwater use efficiency (1.52 to 3.13 kg ha−1 mm−1), and had a higher benefit-cost ratio (1.15 to 2.43) over a 13-year period. This study concludes that integrating in-situ MCP with ex-situ RWH with micro-irrigation significantly improves rainfed crop productivity in vertisols.

Climate change and variability are increasingly affecting agriculture and livelihoods in developing countries, with India being particularly vulnerable. Drought is one of the major climatic constraints impacting large parts of the world. We examined the effects of drought on crop productivity, evaluated the effectiveness of technologies in mitigating these impacts and quantified the resilience gained due to technology adoption. Resilience score and resilience gain are the two indicators used to quantify resilience. The study utilized data gathered from two villages situated in Karnataka, southern India, which have implemented the National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) program, along with data from one control village. Drought has significantly impacted the yields, and the extent of reduction ranged from 23 to 62% compared to the normal year. Adoption of climate-resilient technologies, including improved varieties, water management and livestock practices proved beneficial in increasing yield and income during drought years. The resilience score of various technologies ranged from 71 to 122%, indicating that the technologies had realized an increase in yields in the drought year in comparison to the normal year. The extent of resilience gain ranged from 7 to 68%, indicating that the adoption of technologies contributed to the yield advantage over the farmers’ practice during drought. Water harvesting and critical irrigation have the highest resilience scores and gains, and in situ moisture conservation practices such as trench cum bunding (TCB) have comparable resilience scores and gains. The diversification of enterprises at the farm has a higher resilience score and gain. There is a need to identify climate-resilient technologies that can achieve higher resilience, as the solutions are context-specific. Further, promising technologies need to be scaled by adopting multiple approaches and by creating an enabling environment so as to increase resilience in agricultural systems.

The ungauged wet semi-arid watershed cluster, Seethagondi, lies in the Adilabad district of Telangana in India and is prone to severe erosion and water scarcity. The runoff and soil loss data at watershed, catchment, and field level are necessary for planning soil and water conservation interventions. In this study, an attempt was made to develop a spatial soil loss estimation model for Seethagondi cluster using RUSLE coupled with ARCGIS and was used to estimate the soil loss spatially and temporally. The daily rainfall data of Aphrodite for the period from 1951 to 2007 was used, and the annual rainfall varied from 508 to 1351 mm with a mean annual rainfall of 950 mm and a mean erosivity of 6789 MJ mm ha⁻¹ h⁻¹ year⁻¹. Considerable variation in land use land cover especially in crop land and fallow land was observed during normal and drought years, and corresponding variation in the erosivity, C factor, and soil loss was also noted. The mean value of C factor derived from NDVI for crop land was 0.42 and 0.22 in normal year and drought years, respectively. The topography is undulating and major portion of the cluster has slope less than 10°, and 85.3 % of the cluster has soil loss below 20 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹. The soil loss from crop land varied from 2.9 to 3.6 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ in low rainfall years to 31.8 to 34.7 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ in high rainfall years with a mean annual soil loss of 12.2 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹. The soil loss from crop land was higher in the month of August with an annual soil loss of 13.1 and 2.9 t ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ in normal and drought year, respectively. Based on the soil loss in a normal year, the interventions recommended for 85.3 % of area of the watershed includes agronomic measures such as contour cultivation, graded bunds, strip cropping, mixed cropping, crop rotations, mulching, summer plowing, vegetative bunds, agri-horticultural system, and management practices such as broad bed furrow, raised sunken beds, and harvesting available water using farm ponds and percolation tanks. This methodology can be adopted for estimating the soil loss from similar ungauged watersheds with deficient data and for planning suitable soil and water conservation interventions for the sustainable management of the watersheds.

The Balasore coastal groundwater basin in Orissa, India is under a serious threat of overdraft and seawater intrusion. The overexploitation resulted in abandoning many shallow tubewells in the basin. The main intent of this study is the development of a 2-D groundwater flow and transport model of the basin using the Visual MODFLOW package for analyzing the aquifer response to various pumping strategies. The simulation model was calibrated and validated satisfactorily. Using the validated model, the groundwater response to five pumping scenarios under existing cropping conditions was simulated. The results of the sensitivity analysis indicated that the Balasore aquifer system is more susceptible to the river seepage, recharge from rainfall and interflow than the horizontal and vertical hydraulic conductivities and specific storage. Finally, based on the modeling results, salient management strategies are suggested for the long-term sustainability of vital groundwater resources of the Balasore groundwater basin. The most promising management strategy for the Balasore basin could be: a reduction in the pumpage from the second aquifer by 50% in the downstream region and an increase in the pumpage to 150% from the first and second aquifer at potential locations.

The Balasore coastal groundwater basin of Orissa in eastern India is under a serious threat of overdraft and seawater intrusion. Two optimization models were developed in this study for the efficient utilization of water resources in Balasore basin during non-monsoon periods: (a) a non-linear hydraulic management model for optimal pumpage, and (b) a linear optimization model for optimal cropping pattern in integration with a calibrated and validated groundwater flow simulation model. Based on the simulation-optimization modeling results, optimal pumping schedules, cropping patterns, and corresponding groundwater conditions are presented for three scenarios viz., wet, normal and dry years. It was found that optimal pumping schedules and corresponding cropping patterns differed significantly under the three scenarios, and the groundwater levels improved significantly under the optimal hydraulic conditions compared to the existing condition. In dry years, the groundwater levels under the present pumping pattern and the optimal pumpage indicated that the non-monsoon pumpage should not exceed the optimal pumpage in the absence of remedial measures in the basin. It is concluded that in order to ensure sustainable groundwater utilization in the basin, the optimal cropping pattern and pumping schedule should be adopted by the farmers.

In a semi-arid microwatershed of Warangal district in Southern India, daily runoff was estimated spatially using Soil Conservation Service (SCS)-curve number (CN) method coupled with GIS. The groundwater status in this region is over-exploited, and precise estimation of runoff is very essential to plan interventions for this ungauged microwatershed. Rainfall is the most important factor governing runoff, and 75.8 % of the daily rainfall and 92.1 % of the rainy days which occurred were below 25 mm/day. The declines in rainfall and rainy days observed in recent years were 9.8 and 8.4 %, respectively. The surface runoff estimated from crop land for a period of 57 years varied from 0 to 365 mm with a mean annual runoff of 103.7 mm or 14.1 % of the mean annual rainfall. The mean annual runoff showed a significant reduction from 108.7 to 82.9 mm in recent years. The decadal variation of annual runoff from crop land over the years varied from 49.2 to 89.0 % which showed the caution needed while planning watershed management works in this microwatershed. Among the four land use land cover conditions prevailing in the area, the higher runoff (20 % of the mean annual rainfall) was observed from current fallow in clayey soil and lower runoff of 8.7 % from crop land in loamy soil due to the increased canopy coverage. The drought years which occurred during recent years (1991–2007) in crop land have increased by 3.5 %, normal years have increased by 15.6 %, and the above normal years have decreased by 19.1 %. This methodology can be adopted for estimating the runoff potential from similar ungauged watersheds with deficient data. It is concluded that in order to ensure long-term and sustainable groundwater utilization in the region, proper estimation of runoff and implementation of suitable water harvesting measures are the need of the hour.

Identifying the suitable sites for insitu and ex-situ soil and water conservation interventions with the help of survey is one of the giant tasks for planners. Considering the time consumption for conventional geographical surveys for identification of potential sites, a methodology is being developed using the remote sensing and GIS techniques to find the suitable locations for different insitu soil and water conservation interventions. Different thematic layers of slope, soil, rainfall and land use land cover was intersected in ARCGIS and the selected criteria for each intervention was applied for identifying the suitable locations. This methodology was applied for identifying the suitable locations of different insitu soil and water conservation interventions such as contour bunds, semi-circular bunds, small pits, contour bench terraces, contour ridges and stone bunds in Adilabad District of Telangana state. Among the different interventions selected, stone bunds, contour bunds and small pits are more suitable for major portion of the Adilabad District. This methodology deciphers more precise, easier and less time consuming planning technique which has the ability to process districts or even large catchments. 

This article summarizes the utility of farm pond technology as an adaptation strategy to overcome water shortage due to several reasons, including climate change. This technology has the potential to increase availability of water for supplemental irrigation, increase in cropped area and productivity leading to increase in net returns from crops. Farm pond offers a solution to overcome the increased frequencies of drought, particularly mid-season and terminal drought under climate change scenario. The article advocates for policy intervention to promote one pond for each farm holding having an area of 2.0 ha at individual farm level or on community-sharing basis. Constraints for large-scale implementation of farm pond technology are also discussed.

Aging is a natural and continuous irreversible changing process. In this stage progressive generalized impairment of function occur which results in loss of adaptive response to stress. This study was conducted to assess the emotional problem and coping strategies among senior citizens, The research design used for this study was non experimental descriptive research design, The setting of the study was selected old-age home at Azahiamandapam in Kanyakumari district. The selected population for the study was senior citizens those who are (60yrs and above). Structured questionnaire was used to assess emotional problems and level of coping strategies. On the basis of the study findings, most of the senior citizens have adequate level of coping strategies regarding emotional problems.