Surface water is the main source for agricultural activities in Pakistan. Further, surface water resources are depleting day by day due to the global climate changes, as result there is less water available for agricultural activities. The water scarcity can be managed if water resources are utilized properly. This can be done in two ways. Firstly, water channels should be lined in order to minimize the losses while secondly to make irrigation on crop need basis. Also water can be conserved if crop pattern are practiced.

Pakistan has the world’s largest irrigation system which comprises rivers, dam reservoirs, barrages, canals, distributaries, braches, minors and watercourses.  The watercourses run through the agriculture fields and act as the ultimate source of water to the filed crops. Most of the watercourses in the entire irrigation network in Pakistan are unlined resulting in enormous loss of water due to seepage and wastage. A study conducted in Pakistan showed that about 40% of water losses take place at watercourse level and about 15% losses are due to seepage and remaining due to wastage due to evaporation. In view of the above scenario these watercourses are being lined involving a huge cost. Regular monitoring of the development work being carried out through a reliable and user-friendly information system is one of the key factors for the success of such a large project.

Presently official records of the entire irrigation network in Pakistan are kept in paper based maps and registers which are difficult to handle and analyze. Besides; these maps lack geographic referencing as well as regular updation. Also monitoring is carried out using paper based approach. This paper will address the case study of irrigation system of NWFP province which comprises 70,000 watercourses.   

The system developed for monitoring development work involves mapping through satellite images (SPOT-5), development of customized GIS software and database development (SQL Server), and a communication system to transfer data via GPRS/GSM collected at watercourses using PDA/iPAQ by the monitoring teams. The system is capable of collecting field data, updating records, generating reports and maps to serve current day-to-day needs in addition to possible futuristic enhancement that may include incorporation of several other themes as well as attributes such as soil classification maps, cropping pattern in command areas of watercourses etc in order to address the needs of agricultural activities.

The system developed demonstrates operational application of Satellite Remote Sensing & GIS and associated technologies to water resource management that can be adopted anywhere in the world.