Abstract:
Investigation of available land and water resources for irrigation is very important
agenda for planning and decision making of their use.The present study was initiated with
the objective of investigating the irrigable land and water resource potential of Beresa
watershed for the development of surface irrigation and providing the geo-referenced
data base regarding to irrigation suitability factors sepecifically slope,soil,LULC and
water aviliability of the area.The suitability of slope, soil, LULC and water aviliability
were investigated and geo-referenced each physical parameters using the aid of
ArcGIS9.3.The gross irrigation water requirement,crop water water requirement and
irrigation requirement of Wheat, Barely and Onion was estimated as per decade with the
aid of CROPWAT8 model. Soil depth, soil drainage and soil texture of the study area
were overlay to each other in GIS so as to obtain the overall soil suitability and slope was
get hold of from DEM of 30*30 pixel resolution through reclassifying according to FAO
guidelines. LULC of the study area was also done after importing the freely available
satellite image of the area and classified in supervised classification type using the aid of
ERDAS IMAGINE2014. The overall suitability was done through weighted overlay
analysis of the slope, soil and LULC without including other factors of irrigation
development. Accordingly, the overall soil suitability was 46.91% ranging from highly
suitable to marginally suitable for the development of surface irrigation and about 4.06%
to 48.33% slope of the watershed was highly suitable to marginally suitable. About
10.45% of LULC was non-suitable for the development of surface irrigation. Grossly
28.11%, of the catchment area could potentially be developed in Beresa with the
available flow of the river. Other irrigation suitability factors such as soil chemical
properties, socio-economic aspects, environmental hazards and ground water
investigation should be studied additionally in detail for further irrigation development as
well as enhancing sustainability over the study area.
