IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rwinxx/v45y2020i1p39-59.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Drivers of groundwater utilization in water-limited rice production systems in Nepal

Author

Listed:
  • Anton Urfels
  • Andrew J. McDonald
  • Timothy J. Krupnik
  • Pieter R. van Oel

Abstract

Most rice farmers in Nepal’s Terai region do not fully utilize irrigation during breaks in monsoon rainfall. This leads to yield losses despite abundant groundwater resources and ongoing expansion of diesel pumps and tubewell infrastructure. We investigate this puzzle by characterizing delay factors governing tubewell irrigation across wealth and precipitation gradients. After the decision to irrigate, different factors delay irrigation by roughly one week. While more sustainable and inexpensive energy for pumping may eventually catalyze transformative change, we identify near-term interventions that may increase rice farmers’ resilience to water stress in smallholder-dominated farming communities based on prevailing types of irrigation infrastructure.

Suggested Citation

  • Anton Urfels & Andrew J. McDonald & Timothy J. Krupnik & Pieter R. van Oel, 2020. "Drivers of groundwater utilization in water-limited rice production systems in Nepal," Water International, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(1), pages 39-59, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rwinxx:v:45:y:2020:i:1:p:39-59
    DOI: 10.1080/02508060.2019.1708172
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02508060.2019.1708172
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/02508060.2019.1708172?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Urfels, Anton & Mausch, Kai & Harris, Dave & McDonald, Andrew J. & Kishore, Avinash & Balwinder-Singh, & van Halsema, Gerardo & Struik, Paul C. & Craufurd, Peter & Foster, Timothy & Singh, Vartika & K, 2023. "Farm size limits agriculture's poverty reduction potential in Eastern India even with irrigation-led intensification," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    2. Devkota, Krishna Prasad & Devkota, Mina & Paudel, Gokul Prasad & McDonald, Andrew James, 2021. "Coupling landscape-scale diagnostics surveys, on-farm experiments, and simulation to identify entry points for sustainably closing rice yield gaps in Nepal," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    3. Mkondiwa, Maxwell & Urfels, Anton, 2024. "Risk-based evaluations of competing agronomic climate adaptation strategies: The case of rice planting strategies in the indo-Gangetic Plains," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    4. Kafle, Kashi & Balasubramanya, Soumya & Stifel, David, 2022. "Solar-powered irrigation in Nepal: Adoption and consequences for fossil fuel use," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322256, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Hari Sankar Nayak & Andrew J. McDonald & Virender Kumar & Peter Craufurd & Shantanu Kumar Dubey & Amaresh Kumar Nayak & Chiter Mal Parihar & Panneerselvam Peramaiyan & Shishpal Poonia & Kindie Tesfaye, 2024. "Context-dependent agricultural intensification pathways to increase rice production in India," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.
    6. Pandey, Vishnu Prasad & Shrestha, Nirman & Urfels, Anton & Ray, Anupama & Khadka, Manohara & Pavelic, Paul & McDonald, Andrew J. & Krupnik, Timothy J., 2023. "Implementing conjunctive management of water resources for irrigation development: A framework applied to the Southern Plain of Western Nepal," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 283(C).
    7. Foster, Timothy & Adhikari, Roshan & Adhikari, Subash & Justice, Scott & Tiwari, Baburam & Urfels, Anton & Krupnik, Timothy J., 2021. "Improving pumpset selection to support intensification of groundwater irrigation in the Eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 256(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rwinxx:v:45:y:2020:i:1:p:39-59. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rwin20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.