This publication has been entirely the work of a multi-disciplinary team comprising of irrigation engineers, remote sensing experts, farmers, institutional specialists, research organisations, NGOs and administrators. The authors and the team worked together in the Irrigation Department of the Government of Andhra Pradesh for varying periods between 2004 and 2010. The Irrigation Department has been collecting various types of data relating to the availability of water and its usage. It was considered necessary to compile the entire information at one place and also establish a dedicated unit to regularly update the data and analyse these, so informed decisions could be made by various users inside and outside the Irrigation Department. Therefore a Geographical Management Information System (GMIS) Cell was established in the Irrigation Department under the Commissioner, Command Area Development. This Cell consisted of young engineers of the department selected through rigorous procedures from the latest recruitment. These engineers had a formal exposure and education to GIS, remote sensing and database management.
The non-spatial information is compiled as “Water resources statistical abstract Andhra Pradesh 2010” and can be accessed on http://apwaterreforms.in/data.html.
The spatial information is presented here and published as “Water Resources of Andhra Pradesh”. The objective of placing this information on a website is to make it freely available to planners, academicians, students or anyone interested in water resources. We will be adding more analysis and data as and when possible. We also request comments and suggestions for improving the user interface or the contents of the blog.
Sanjay Gupta
Anne Chappuis
Satya Prakash Tucker
