Restoring groundwater in Punjab, India’s breadbasket: finding agricultural solutions for water sustainability
This paper outlines the extent and severity of Punjab’s water crisis, and outlines the results of a field study to help farmers irrigate rice more efficiently. The paper then focuses on the application of the tensiometer, a simple device that had the most promising results in helping farmers save water. The paper concludes that in conjunction with other measures, it is possible to rapidly scale up tensiometer use by rice farmers in Punjab, thus saving millions of liters of water as well as over 80 million kilowatt hours per year of electricity for a very low cost.