R.V. Meshram, M.U. Kale, V.K. Balsane, S.P. Nikam and P.G. Popale
Abstract
Accurate prediction of crop water requirement is extremely useful for operation, planning and management of available water resources in semi arid regions. In this study, CROPWAT, a computer model was used to estimate the reference evapotranspiration (ETo) for the command area of Telhara distributary of Wan River Project in Maharashtra state. Daily meteorological data including rainfall, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, sunshine hours and radiations were collected for the period of 2001 to 2015 and analysed. This data was used in CROPWAT for estimation of the reference evapotranspiration and effective rainfall and average peak monthly values were estimated. The high mean monthly ETo where found to be as 6.45 and 6.30 mm day-1 in the month of April and May. The high values were may be due to high temperature during the summer month, whereas minimum mean monthly ETo were estimated at 3.34 and 3.40 mm day-1 in the month of December and January, respectively. The highest annual effective rainfall was 662.5 mm with maximum effective rainfall occurs in July (123.62 mm) followed by August (123.35 mm), months, respectively.