Impact of water conservation structures on the agricultural productivity in the context of climate change

The temporal variability of rainfall in rainfed regions is one of the main factors for their low agricultural productivity. The future climate projections show an increased variability of rainfall, thus further impacting the rainfed agriculture. The change in rainfall pattern is expected to alter the cropping period and making the crop sowing date critical to mitigate crop failure. However, with enhanced temporal variability of rainfall, arriving at an optimal crop sowing date is a challenging task. One of the widely adopted measure to improve the agricultural productivity in the rainfed regions is water harvesting structures (WHS). This study evaluates the ability of the WHS in absorbing the shock of the temporal variability of the rainfall on the agricultural productivity. In addition, the efficacy of the structures in improving the agricultural productivity in the future climate projections is also evaluated. The proposed analysis is performed over Kondepi watershed in Andhra Pradesh, India, where water conservation measures are implemented by Government and Non-Government Organizations. The results of the study show that the WHS can minimize the sensitivity of the agricultural productivity to the crop sowing date. The extended availability of water in WHS resulted in removing the relationship between crop sowing date and crop productivity, thus exhibiting the ability of WHS in dams in absorbing the shock caused by the temporal variability of the rainfall. Further, the agricultural productivity was found to be increasing due to the presence of WHS in both current and future climate conditions.