Remote sensing and GIS application in determining water requirement for paddy at Kibimba irrigation scheme in Bugiri District, Eastern Uganda

Abstract

Water in the modern world is a highly valuable resource, so it is very necessary to use this very precious resource wisely. One of the major users of water is agriculture either in form of direct use or through irrigation. It becomes very important to note the various requirements and their amount of supply, in this case an important tool can be useful to the calculation. I.e. IRRIGATION EFFICIENCY and with this crop water requirement can also be an effective tool. Irrigation efficiency is highly useful data in calculation the actual water requirement at the field and the amount of water that is supplied to the farm lands. There are many techniques usually applied for calculation of such process but ArcGIS was taken into consideration with high resolution satellite images because a large area can be covered with ease a thematic map can be usually designed, land use and land cover map can be used too. The study area is Kibimba rice irrigation scheme, in Bugiri district of eastern Uganda. This study is focusing on estimating the water demand for paddy crop during specific cropping season within the study area. High quality satellite images were taken into consideration to identify the irrigated areas and the fallow land.