This report is a review of the conjunctive water use of surface water and groundwater within the Rechna Doab. The Rechna Doab is located in the Punjab province and has an area of 2.98 million hectares (Figure 1). The cultivated area in the Rechna Doab is regarded as the granary of the Punjab province and comprises eight districts, namely, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Sheikhupura, Faisalabad, Toba Tek Singh, Jhang, Narowal and Hafizabad. The area consists of two distinct agroclimatic zones, i.e. the Punjab Rice-Wheat (PRW) zone and the Punjab Sugarcane-Wheat (PSW) zone (WAPDA, 1979). Irrigated agriculture started in the Rechna Doab in 1892 via Lower Chenab Canal. The irrigation system in the Rechna Doab consists of 504 km of branch canals, 240 km of main canals and 373 km of link canals, and about 0.2 million tubewells are installed in the freshwater areas. This report is prepared to provide an overview of land and water resources available in the Rechna Doab and the institutional issues that need to be addressed for effective conjunctive water management in the Rechna Doab.

Institutional development / Farm income / Water scarcity / GIS / Remote sensing / Salinity control / Pumping / Rain / Water quality / Supplementary irrigation / Environmental sustainability / Sustainable agriculture / Water table / Water balance / Water requirements / Crop production / Models / Groundwater / Surface water / Conjunctive use / Water resource management

Due to inadequate rainfall, groundwater has acquired a vital role in the development of Pakistan's agricultural economy. However, a lack of awareness concerning the use of groundwater, either by itself or combined with canal water, has added large amounts of salt to the soil. As a result, large tracts of irrigated lands are already salinized, while many others are under threat. This report presents the results of a modeling study carried out to evaluate the long-term effects of a different quality of irrigation water on root zone salinity. The simulations were performed for the Rechna Doab (sub basin of the Indus Basin) in Pakistan, by using 15 years of actual rainfall and climatic data.

One of the key features of agricultural development in the last five decades has been intensive groundwater use in the Indo-Gangetic Basin (Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh) and in the Yellow River Basin (China). Groundwater irrigates almost 60% of the net irrigated area in South Asia and 70% in the north China plains. Groundwater use for agri

This volume is an analytical summary and a critical synthesis of research at the International Water Management Institute over the past decade under its evolving research paradigm known popularly as 'more crop per drop'. The research synthesized here covers the full range of issues falling in the larger canvas of water-food-health-environment interface. Besides its immediate role in sharing knowledge with the research, donor, and policy communities, this volume also has a larger purpose of promoting a new way of looking at the water issues within the broader development context of food, livelihood, health and environmental challenges. More crop per drop: Revisiting a research paradigm contrasts the acquired wisdom and fresh thinking on some of the most challenging water issues of our times. It describes new tools, approaches, and methodologies and also illustrates them with practical application both from a global perspective and within the local and regional contexts of Asia and Africa. Since this volume brings together all major research works of IWMI, including an almost exhaustive list of citations, in one single set of pages, it is very valuable not only as a reference material for researchers and students but also as a policy tool for decision-makers and development agencies.

It is beyond doubt that the interconnectedness between food, energy, water security and environmental sustainability exists and is getting amplified with increased globalization. It has been recognized that efforts to address only one part of a systemic problem by neglecting other inherently interlinked aspects may not lead to desirable and sustainable outcomes. In this perspective, policy- and decision- making requires a nexus approach that reduces trade-offs and builds synergies across sectors, and helps to reduce costs and increase benefits for humans and nature compared to independent approaches to the management of water, energy, food and the environment. In the past, work related to the Nexus has looked at the interactions between water and food or water and energy, but there has been a reluctance to bring forward a broader systematic perspective that captures the multiple sectors and resource dependencies while understanding its cost to the environment if we neglect these linkages. This book is a compilation of thirteen papers published previously as a special issue of Water International, contains significant pieces of work on the W-E-F nexus focusing on relevant tools, solutions and governance at local and broader human scales.