Gerald Lacey lecture 2022 - Just add water: A history of irrigation management in India

Overview

Join us at this year’s Gerald Lacey lecture, to be delivered by IJsbrand de Jong, a water resources specialist at the World Bank.

The lecture will explore how irrigation in India has changed, and the reasons for these changes.

It will also look at how public irrigation agencies can become more accountable and sustainable, and improve the quality of services they deliver.

How India moved from protective to groundwater irrigation

Irrigation in India has changed significantly since the days that Gerald Lacey was the principal of the University of Roorkee.

Most notably, groundwater irrigation has largely replaced protective irrigation, which aimed to spread water thinly over as large an area as possible and was widely practised in North India.

Groundwater irrigation now accounts for almost two-thirds of India’s irrigation water supply.

Service delivery, the political economy, and the governance of irrigation in India have all played a role in this transition.

The quality of irrigation services is therefore closely linked to the judicious use of groundwater.

Recent developments in the monitoring of irrigation performance through remote sensing have made it possible to introduce performance-based irrigation management and can help improve these services.

Join us as we advance the thinking around the management of water resources and irrigation.

Programme