Design, construction and performance evaluation of small tile drainage systems in the Indus Basin

Waterlogging and salinity in the Indus Basin of Pakistan are major threats to sustainable agriculture. Drainage measures adopted earlier were not only expensive and non-environmentally friendly but also failed to involve the farming community. During the last three decades, 13 small tile drainage systems were designed and constructed on farmers' land on a cost-sharing basis. Of these, the performance of three systems (NIA, Bughio and Nawazabad farms) was evaluated for a period of over 10 years. The parameters selected for evaluation included groundwater table, drainage coefficient, root zone soil salinity and agronomic outcomes. The drainage system successfully controlled the groundwater table at the designed depth of 1 m from the soil surface. Monitoring of drainage coefficients of three selected drainage systems revealed that observed values were very close to the designed value of 3 mm day(-1) and the systems decreased soil salinity in root zones and improved land productivity. Consequently, there was a shift of cropping pattern to grow higher- value crops like rice, cotton and sugarcane. Copyright (C) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.