Effect of water scarcity on groundwater use efficiency in the rice sector of Karnataka: a case study

Abstract

Scarcity of a resource is proven to cause prudent and efficient use in many cases. This is contradicted in other studies where common property resource is shown as heavily abstracted in the face of scarcity. Our paper provides a field level examination of the ground water scarcity-use efficiency nexus using causal inference theory. We use data from villages of Madhugiri, Karnataka where groundwater is increasingly becoming a scarce resource. Groundwater Use Efficiency (GWUE) scores are calculated using the concept of sub-vector efficiency in Data Envelopment Analysis. The inefficiencies are then traced to the farm level scarcity indicators using Inverse Probability Weighting method. We use farm level proxies as scarcity indicators such as the age of irrigation! wells, irrigation investment cost and number of wells at farm level. Our study finds that water scarcity affects the GWUE negatively when conditioned on other confounders pointing to higher abstraction behavior in the face of scarcity. This result indicates that maintaining water availability levels at farm level would help in improving GWUE scores.

Levels of Technical, Allocative, and Groundwater Use Efficiency and the Factors Affecting the Allocative Efficiency of Wheat Farmers in Pakistan

“…Technical efficiency is achieved when a farmer produces a given output from the least possible quantity of inputs [24,29]. Groundwater use efficiency estimates possible relative reductions in groundwater use without changing the remaining inputs and output levels [30,31]. Technical efficiency considers the physical aspects of production without considering the market prices of the inputs or the value of the outputs.…”