Judicious and optimal use of water and land resources for long-term agricultural sustainability

Water and land scarcity has increased considerably thanks to population growth, urbanization, contamination of resources, and climate change impacts. The world needs to produce over 60% more food to feed about ten billion people in 2050 by using these scarce resources. The aforementioned goal can be accomplished by optimizing the distribution of existing water and land resources, which can be done through an optimization model. This study developed an optimization model for maximizing net agricultural return and minimizing the irrigation-induced waterlogging and salinization problems of a study region of the Jhajjar district of India. The results show that under the optimal condition, the rice area decreases as the other crop's area increases during the monsoon. Whereas, during winter, the area of wheat increases while the mustard area decreases. The results also reveal that under the optimal scenario, groundwater withdrawal has increased, eventually lowering the aquifer level and thus alleviating waterlogging and salinization problems in the region. Moreover, under the optimal allocation, the study area's net annual agricultural return rises by over 17% to 1952.63 million from the existing 1812.21 million. The results of the sensitivity analysis of model parameters revealed that the crop's market price had a larger effect on the output, followed by crop area and cultivation costs. Based on the model's results, it is recommended that government agencies and real-world agricultural farmers practice increased use of groundwater with canal water conjunctively to maximize farm income and minimize irrigation-related problems in agro-ecosystems. Results of this study have long-term implications in sustaining agricultural productivity and water resources conservation in arid and semi-arid regions, which are primarily underlain by poor quality groundwater. The approach used is the first of its kind in the study region and is simple to follow and it can also be replicated in other areas of the world dealing with similar issues.