Water use efficiency and economic feasibility of growing rice and wheat with sprinkler irrigation in the Indus Basin of Pakistan Muhammad Akram Kahlown a, *, Abdur Raoof 1,b , Muhammad Zubair 1,b , W. Doral Kemper a a Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR), Khyaban-e-Johar, H-8/1 Islamabad, Pakistan b Regional Office, PCRWR 6 km, Thokar Niaz Baig, Main Raiwind Road, Lahore, Pakistan 1. Introduction Irrigated agriculture produces about 40% of all food, and consumes 69% of all freshwater resources (FAO, 2000). Global population growth is expected to increase the demand for cereals including rice and wheat by 1.27% annually between 2000 and 2025 (Rosegrant and Cai, 2000). To meet the projected demand for food, irrigated agriculture will require an increase of 17% in freshwater resources (Seregeldin, 1999). In many arid and semi-arid countries where population growth is high, and freshwater is in short supply, there is pressure on the agricultural sector to reduce its water consumption and make it available for the urban and industrial sectors. This drives the demand to produce cereals, especially rice and wheat, using agricultural water management 87 (2007) 292–298 article info Article history: Accepted 27 July 2006 Published on line 26 September 2006 Keywords: Rice Wheat Sprinkler irrigation Indus Basin Pakistan Water saving Evapotranspiration Water productivity Economic feasibility abstract With a population of more than 150 million, Pakistan cannot meet its need for food, if adequate water is not available for crop production. Per capita water availability has decreased from 5600 m 3 in 1947 to 1000 m 3 in 2004. Water table has gone down by more than 7 m in most parts of the country. Present need is to identify and adopt measures, that will reduce water use and increase crop production. This study was conducted in farmers’ fields during 2002–2004 to evaluate the water use efficiency and economic viability of sprinkler irrigation system for growing rice and wheat crops. Yields and water use were also measured on adjacent fields irrigated by basin flooding, which were planted with the same crop varieties. Sprinkler irrigation of rice produced 18% more yield, while reducing consumption of water to 35% of that used in the traditional irrigation system. Sprinkler irrigation of wheat resulted in a water use efficiency of 5.21 kg of grain per cubic meter of water used compared to 1.38 kg/m 3 in the adjacent flooded basins. Benefit–cost analysis showed that adoption of rain-gun sprinkler irrigation for rice and wheat is a financially viable option for farmers. While these findings show large potentials for improving water use efficiency in crop production they also indicate that a large portion of the water applied in traditional flooded basin irrigation is going to groundwater recharge, which has high value near large cities which draw their water from the aquifer. # 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +92 51 9258959; fax: +92 51 9258963. E-mail addresses: pcrwr@isb.comsats.net.pk, kahlown@hotmail.com (M.A. Kahlown), ropcrwr@lhr.comsats.net.pk (A. Raoof), ropcrwr@lhr.comsats.net.pk (M. Zubair), pcrwr@isb.comsats.net.pk, kahlown@hotmail.com (W.D. Kemper). 1 Tel.: +92 42 5320484; fax: +92 42 5321067. available at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat 0378-3774/$ – see front matter # 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.agwat.2006.07.011