Water Resources

Andhra Pradesh Water Resources

Andhra Pradesh is the fifth largest state in the country both in terms of area and population. It has an area of 275 thousand sq. km forming 8.37 per cent of the total geographic area of the country. With 76.2 million people according to the 2001 census, it accounts for 7.41% of Indias population. The state is situated in a tropical region lying between latitudes 13 degree to 20 degree North and the longitudes 77 degree to 85 degree East. The state has a long coastline of 974km. It is divided into 23 districts for administrative purposes. The total population of Andhra Pradesh is expected to rise to 90 million by 2020 which will impinge seriously on the states socio-economic development.

Basin Map

 

Related Downloads

• Basin wise Water Availability and Utilisation by Irrigation

Surface Water

Andhra Pradesh is a riverine state with 40 major, medium and minor rivers. Off these 3 are major interstate rivers. Godavari, Krishna and Pennar flow through the heart of the state. Besides these, 5 interstate rivers north of Godavari flow through Orissa and Andhra Pradesh and 4 rivers south of Pennar flow through Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Apart from the above 12 rivers, 28 medium and minor rivers flow with in Andhra Pradesh.

The dependable yield from all these rivers is 2769 TMC. This breaks up into 1480 TMC from Godavari, 811 TMC from Krishna, 99 TMC from Pennar and the rest from the other small rivers. Water utilization so far is only 1933 TMC irrigating 61.66 lakh ha against cultivable area of 157.78 lakh ha. About 70% of the population of Andhra Pradesh depends upon agriculture.

All the rivers are seasonal, with bulk of the flow taking place during the monsoon. The States share of dependable flow (75 % dependability) from the river system is estimated at 7.78 mham, out of which about 4.96 mham is being currently utilized. It is estimated that all these rivers together annually carry 77.75 bcm of water into the state with 75% of dependability with the present utilization level of 49.63 bcm. The total culturable command area has been estimated as 11.76 million ha. The potential utilized under surface irrigation is about 5 million hectares through 17 existing major irrigation projects and 86 medium irrigation projects and while about.88 million hectares is irrigated by more than 75000 minor irrigation tanks. The area irrigated through ground water is about 2.9 million hectares against the potential of about 3.9 million ha.

 

Related Downloads

• River basins in the State - total culturable area, culturable Command Area, Ultimate and Cumulative Irrigation Potential and Average Irrigated area
• River Basins in the State-Catchment Area

Ground Water

The Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) has estimated that Andhra Pradesh has about 32.95 BCM of replenishable groundwater. As per the guideline of Ministry of Water Resources-MOWR (1997), the status of groundwater is given as ratio of the utilization and availability (approximately equal to the recharge), which is called the stage of groundwater development. It can be called the stage of groundwater utilization for clarity. The stage of groundwater development or utilization is around 45% of the available resources of 32.95 BCM where the utilized groundwater is about 14.88 BCM leaving utilizable balance of 18 BCM, (about 55 % of the total available quantity). However actual utilizable groundwater is different from the available groundwater as this may occur in areas where it may not be utilized.

A recent estimate by Andhra Pradesh State Ground Water Department Apsgwd (2008) suggests that 13.2 BCM of this 18 BCM is in command areas of major projects. Another 1.3 BCM or so could be in forested areas and other non-cultivable areas. It leaves just about 3.5 BCM as the actual balance resource available for further utilization in the State. This is just about 10% or so of the available potential. Much of even this meager amount is in areas where wells have very poor yields, are seasonal and are also prone to failures. If minimum needs of the environment are also taken into account, the resource may well have a negative balance.

Groundwater Use in Andhra Pradesh

Traditionally, dug wells and irrigation tanks served to meet demands of agriculture in the state. However, with the advent of bore-well drilling technology since late 1970s and early 1980s, the scenario changed, especially in hard-rocks that occupy 85% of the state. Drilled wells could be made deeper and faster. This contributed directly to rapid development of groundwater and proliferation of wells and finally to over-exploitation of groundwater. The interior districts of the state are worst sufferers. Well density increased by a magnitude of over 16 folds in 3 decades or so while gross cropped area under groundwater increased by just over 2.5 times. The annual groundwater usage is 14.9 BCM through more than 2.5 million bore wells. Out of this, irrigation draws about 13.88 BCM and irrigates about 2.9 million ha while domestic and industrial uses account for rest of 1.02 BCM (CGWB 2006). Agriculture contributes about Rs. 434 billion to the economy and of this groundwater irrigation contributes about 28.1%. In other words, approximately Rs. 122 billion of GDP is contributed by groundwater based irrigation. 

Status of Ground Water Utilisation

There are 198 mandals in the state where more than 50% of irrigation is through groundwater. This is because groundwater based irrigation is the primary option available to farmers in the non command areas, facilitated by availability of easy credit for private investment. Groundwater assessment units in the state are categorised or listed as over-exploited in 132, critical in 89 semi-critical in 175 and safe in 833 groundwater units. Translated in terms of mandals, it is that 219 of them are over-exploited, 77 are critical, 179 are semi-critical and the rest 760 are safe (CGWB, 2006).

Categorization of Groundwater Assessment Units in Andhra Pradesh

The distribution of mandals by level of exploitation categories and by command and non command area is given in the map below.

Groundwater Categorisation in Andhra Pradesh

Groundwater monitoring data indicate that groundwater in 15% of the mandals in the state are over exploited, 5% are critical, another 15% are semi-critical and the remaining 65% are still safe. However, if the mandals are segregated by their location in command and non command areas, the distribution shows significant changes. In the non command areas, for the entire state the safe mandals drop to around only 55%, with the regional figures dropping still further with Telengana at 50% and Rayalseema at 40%. Unless this situation is mitigated, there is serious risk that in the future more mandals in the state will come under groundwater stress. This could cause serious environmental problems and furthermore, the sustainability of agriculture under groundwater irrigation could be rendered unproductive causing serious adverse impacts on the livelihood of the concerned farmers. Consequently, while there is still scope for developing groundwater utilization in the command areas as conjunctive use, there is a need to regulate groundwater abstraction in the areas of over exploitation and critical use through incentives for recharge and increasing efficiency of water use. The Government of Andhra Pradesh has enacted the A.P. Water, Land and Tree Act with an objective to regulate usage of groundwater, whose implementation needs to be properly monitored. The district wise utilization pattern is provided in the table below.

DISTRICT WISE GROUNDWATER RESOURCE POTENTIAL AND STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT 2007
S.no	District	TMC
		Annual Ground water availability			Existing gross Ground water draft for all uses
		Command areas	Non Command Area	Total	Command areas	Non Command Area	Total
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1	Srikakulam	15.01	19.40	34.41	2.81	6.73	9.54
2	Vijayanagaram	13.12	18.92	32.04	2.10	4.57	6.66
3	Vishakapatnam	3.12	22.70	25.82	1.75	4.31	6.06
4	East Godvari	50.65	20.63	71.28	6.86	7.45	14.31
5	West Godvari	51.58	24.00	75.58	2.99	18.04	21.03
6	Krishna	61.35	14.17	75.53	11.65	9.92	21.57
7	Guntur	113.27	4.44	117.71	11.12	1.91	13.03
8	Prakasam	33.84	22.93	56.77	4.85	14.59	19.44
9	Nellore	56.28	37.00	93.28	16.07	19.67	35.74
10	Chttoor	0.00	53.24	53.24	0.00	35.72	35.72
11	Kadapa	11.35	26.00	37.35	3.08	22.58	25.66
12	Anantapur	12.01	29.43	41.44	6.93	30.19	37.13
13	Kurnool	29.25	18.73	47.99	8.89	8.94	17.83
14	Mahabubnagar	13.92	38.30	52.22	2.05	23.32	25.36
15	Rangareddy	0.00	20.48	20.48	0.00	20.24	20.24
16	Medak	0.00	35.94	35.94	0.00	26.51	26.51
17	Nizamabad	14.87	22.76	37.63	10.21	17.98	28.19
18	Adilabad	14.65	43.22	57.86	4.07	13.99	18.07
19	Karimnagar	31.02	27.27	58.29	5.33	22.12	27.45
20	Warangal	30.00	36.75	66.75	17.76	25.66	43.43
21	Khammam	16.67	56.37	73.05	4.15	9.07	13.23
22	Nalgonda	21.23	38.32	59.55	3.83	27.85	31.67
Andhra Pradesh		593.20	631.03	1224.22	126.50	371.37	497.87

continue table

DISTRICT WISE GROUNDWATER RESOURCE POTENTIAL AND STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT 2007
S.no	District	TMC			% Stage of Gw Development
		Ground water Balance
		Command areas	Non Command Area	Total	Command areas	Non Command Area	Total
1	2	9	10	11	12	13	14
1	Srikakulam	12.20	12.68	24.88	19	35	28
2	Vijayanagaram	11.02	14.35	25.37	16	24	21
3	Vishakapatnam	1.37	18.39	19.76	56	19	23
4	East Godvari	43.79	13.18	56.97	14	36	20
5	West Godvari	48.60	5.96	54.55	6	75	28
6	Krishna	49.70	4.26	53.96	19	70	29
7	Guntur	102.15	2.53	104.68	10	43	11
8	Prakasam	29.00	8.34	37.34	14	64	34
9	Nellore	40.21	17.33	57.54	29	53	38
10	Chttoor	0.00	17.52	17.52	0	67	67
11	Kadapa	8.26	3.42	11.68	27	87	69
12	Anantapur	5.08	-0.76	4.31	58	103	90
13	Kurnool	20.36	9.79	30.16	30	48	37
14	Mahabubnagar	11.87	14.99	26.86	15	61	49
15	Rangareddy	0.00	0.24	0.24	0	99	99
16	Medak	0.00	9.44	9.44	0	74	74
17	Nizamabad	4.66	4.78	9.43	69	79	75
18	Adilabad	10.57	29.22	39.79	28	32	31
19	Karimnagar	25.69	5.15	30.84	17	81	47
20	Warangal	12.24	11.09	23.32	59	18	65
21	Khammam	12.52	47.30	59.82	25	53
22	Nalgonda	17.40	10.47	27.87	18	73
Andhra Pradesh		466.70	259.65	726.36	21	59	41

Recharge to groundwater occurs through infiltration and deep percolation of rainfall and subsidiary recharge is through different water bodies like tanks, rivers etc. and through irrigation return flows. But in areas served by canal command the main contribution is through canal seepages and irrigation return flows. The mean recharge for the state is 122 mm, but in areas not served by canal commands it is around 90 mm. It is significantly low in drought prone Anantapur district with about 50 mm. It is sensitive to rainfall received in a year and sometimes small negative deviation can considerably reduce the recharge, especially in low rainfall areas of the state.

The government has also started interventions like recharge measures, control measures, regulation in ground water management, community based management practices like improved water use efficiency, water audits, participatory hydrological monitoring, market linkages, improved agronomic practices, conjunctive use of surface and ground water, revival and restoration of minor irrigation tanks and other aquifer stabilization and protection measures, periodic and reliable data flow in terms of quality and quantity at various levels and analyses and preparation of perspective and periodic plans for a sustainable and long term utilization of ground water in the state.

Water Consumption by Various Sectors

The total water resources (surface and ground water) of Andhra Pradesh are estimated to be 108,200 mcm, of which about 65,169 mcm are currently utilized for drinking (601 mcm), irrigation (64,252 mcm), industry (288 mcm) and power generation (28 mcm). Therefore, of the total water utilized in the State, water supplied for drinking, industrial and power generation purposes constituted only 0.9%, 0.4% and 0.04%, respectively. The remaining utilized water is all supplied for irrigation (98.66%). However, by 2025, the total water requirement for the drinking, industrial and power generation purposes is estimated to reach 3,468 mcm, 1,445 mcm and 56 mcm, respectively. At the same time the estimated requirement of water for irrigation is 108,050 mcm. That would mean a total water requirement of 113,019 mcm, i.e. about 4,819 mcm more than the total water presently available in the State.

Present Water Use and Future Needs-Andhra Pradesh
Description	Present Utilization2001		Needed by 2025		Increase
	(mcm)	% of Total	(mcm)	% of Total	(%)
Drinking water	601	0.90	3,468	3.10	581
Irrigation	64,252	98.66	108,050	95.55	168
Industries	288	0.40	1,445	1.30	510
Power generation (consumptive use)	28	0.04	56	0.05	200
Total	65,169		113,019		173 %
Source: Irrigation and Command Area Development Department