Assessment of Water Conservation Technique in Rice Culture to Develop Water Use Policies

• Main Author: Kongchum, Manoch
• Other Authors: Michael W. Wascom
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: LSU 2005
• Subjects: Environmental Studies
• Online Access: http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-07152005-104328/

The rapid growth of world population has resulted in significantly increased global water demand. According to a recent report on limited water supply, conservation techniques and water use policies are needed to preserve water resources. Worldwide agriculture is the largest consumer of water, particularly for growing rice. Water use for rice production was chosen because rice will continue to be a staple crop for the majority of the worlds population and because of its pervasive use of water. Hence, this thesis was designed to investigate water conservation possibilities for rice production in two water management regimes: alternate flooding and drying, and continuous flooding (the latter is the traditional water management technique in irrigated rice culture). The alternate flooding and drying treatment reduced water use by 13-29 percent and increased rice grain yield by 33-36 percent. Results demonstrate that there is great potential to increase water use efficiency in wetland rice culture without reducing rice grain yield. Moreover, the results can be used to strengthen government water use policies in irrigated rice farming systems.