World Environment Day June-2012 11 MAKING AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY GREEN : REDUCING CARBON EMISSIONS THROUGH IMPROVED IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT By Asad Sarwar Qureshi 1 Abstract Increasing use of groundwater for irrigation is consuming huge amount of energy and depleting the resource. Groundwater use is affiliated with high energy demand and consequently high carbon footprint in Pakistan. We have estimated that lifting of 50 km 3 of groundwater in Pakistan consumes more than 6 billion kWh of electricity and 3.5 billion liters of diesel. Carbon emissions attributed to this energy use are 3.8 million mt of C per year, which is 1.2% of the total CO 2 emissions in Pakistan. Therefore there is an opportunity to reduce energy use and CO 2 emission by improving irrigation management and reducing groundwater extraction. This study shows that by adopting improving irrigation practices, 16 BCM of irrigation water can be saved, which in turn, will reduce the energy demand and carbon footprint 37%. This study clearly reveals that improvements in productivity of water can help in coping with water, energy, and climate change issues in the agriculture sector in Pakistan. Keywords: Improved irrigation practices, CO 2 emissions, energy use in irrigation, groundwater use in Pakistan Introduction Groundwater has emerged as an exceedingly important water resource and its increasing demand in agriculture, domestic and industrial uses ranks it as a resource of strategic importance. In view of the high evapotranspiration and salinity environment under which irrigated agriculture in the Indus basin is practiced, the availability of surface water resources is only marginally sufficient for basin wide, year round high intensity cropping (Qureshi et al., 2008). This difference between the crop water requirements and surface water supplies, combined with the generally unreliable nature and relatively inefficient delivery systems, has led to the exploitation of the groundwater, where conditions allow (World Bank, 2007). Increasing role of groundwater in agriculture has made it very energy-intensive. Groundwater exploitation enabled farmers to supplement their irrigation requirements and to cope with the vagaries of the surface supplies. This allows them not only to increase their production and incomes but also enhance their opportunities to diversify their income base and to reduce their vulnerability against seasonality of agricultural production and external shocks such as droughts (Bhutta, 2002; Qureshi et al., 2010). Groundwater has also been important to increase resilience against climate change because surface storages have fared poorly on these counts. These benefits will ______________________________________________________________________________________