Statistics : Comprehensive :: Individual Project No.

20

A Study on Relation of Groundwater Depletion With

Lean Season Irrigation in West Bengal
Bikram Karmakar(bst0841)
March 25, 2011

i
1 HEADING 1

Statistics : Comprehensive :: Individual Project No. 20

A Study on Relation of Groundwater Depletion With Lean Season
Irrigation in West Bengal
Submitted By: Bikram Karmakar(bst0841)

1 Description of The Data

We have data concerning annually replenishable groundwater level and lean season irri-
gation in different blocks of West Bengal. All the blocks from all the 18 districts of West
Bengal are included in the data. Variables on which we have explicit data are
1. Total Area (in Hectors) of the block.
2. Side of the river Bhagirathi on which the block lies (2 for North, 1 for East, 0 for
West).

3. Area of Boro cultivation in the block estimated from Small Area Survey.
4. Area of (Non Boro) Rabi cultivation in the block estimated from Small Area Survey.
5. Average (on the blocks) annually replenishable groundwater level in each of the
districts, i.e. level of groundwater that have declined in the district over the annum.
Standard units for Area, groundwater are square meter (m2 ) and cubic meter (m3 )
respectively (ref. http://www.cgwb.gov.in). These standard units are used through-
out this text and in our analysis.

2 Objective
Our objective is to explain the groundwater depletion or variation in groundwater de-
pletion by lean season irrigation. It is important to notice that the data in our hand
is strictly limited to West Bengal only. Therefore the results and conclusions will be
limited to this particular state of India. There is no reason at all to believe that we will
have same results on different parts of the world, because groundwater depletion is surely
affected by geographic characteristics of the part.
Thus we are actually trying to find out any kind of relationship between lean season
irrigation and groundwater depletion and then explain effects of different independent
factors involved.

3 Method of Study
3.1 Assumptions
We make two necessary and relevant assumptions for our study, these are,
Uniform distribution of groundwater within each of the districts Since we have
only the average annually replenishable groundwater level in the districts(but not
for the blocks), the whole information on blockwise annually replenishable ground-
water levels are not available to us. Thus this assumption helps us to analysis our
data.
Lean season irrigation in some area affects only the groundwater in that area
It says that irrigation in other blocks do not affect groundwater level in a block.
This assumption is quite reasonable since block size is generally much bigger than
the total area of cultivation. This assumption is technically needed for assuring the
independence of the observations from each of the blocks.
3 METHOD OF STUDY 2

3.2 Description of the Trial Model

Since groundwater depletion is area specific and also there may be many other confounding
variables, a safer way would be to model relative change in groundwater depletion, i.e. we
shall try to find out the relative change in groundwater depletion due to one unit relative
change in area of irrigation. Mathematically, we are interested in,

∂R.G.W/R.G.W ∂ log(R.G.W )
= (1)
∂Area Irri/Area Irri ∂ log(Area Irri)
Where R.G.W denotes annual replenishable ground water in the blocks and AreaIrri
denotes Area of irrigation in the blocks. Thus, we shall try to model log(R.G.W ) as a
linear function of log(Area Irri).
By our first assumption, we can find the amount replenishable groundwater for a block
by multiplying the replenishable groundwater level by total area of the block. Thus the
amount of annually groundwater depletion is available to us for the blocks.

3.2.1 Trial Model

Our initial model of study is,

log(R.G.W ) = µ + αSideof Bhagirathi + βAreaIrri(Boro) log(AreaIrri(Boro))

+βAreaIrri(Rabi) log(AreaIrri(Rabi)) + 

with  normally distributed with mean zero and equal variance. Relevant sources of
error for the model would be 1) formula error, 2) estimation error for estimating Area of
Boro and Rabi irrigation from SA, 3) Absence of other relevant explanatory variables.
NOTE: Our Goodness of Fit of the model would be based on R¯2 (for nested models)
and AIC(for non nested models). Results are summarized as follows

Figure 1: Data analysis results for the Trial Model

3.2.2 Results of the trial model (from Figure 1)

2
1. R value is only 30.02%
2. There are many observations that gives large estimated errors.
4 INTERPRETATION OF THE MODEL 3

3. Plots of errors vs AreaIrri(Boro), AreaIrri(Rabi), TotalIrri shows a decreasing trend

of variance of the errors as the Areas increases.

3.3 Revised Model

Figure 2: Factorial effects on the data

The last result in the trial model is an evidence of the heteroscedasticity of the model
residuals. We suspect that the groundwater depletion may not be equally affected by a
unit change in amount of irrigation(in Area) for different levels of Irrigation.
Modification 1 We assume V (|T otalIrrigation) = σ 2 (T otalIrri)−2
Modification 2 Two more blocking factors along with their interactions are assumed.
They are 1) Whether proportion of Area of Boro in a block CB or not, 2) Whether
proportion of Area of Rabi in a block CR or not. On the basis of AIC comparison
the choice of CB and CR turns out to be CB = CR = 0.3. These factorial effects
can be graphically seen in Figure 2.

4 Interpretation of The Model

Our Model for explaining groundwater depletion is

log(R.G.W ) = µ + α(sideof Bhagirathi) + β(AreaIrri(Boro)) log(AreaIrri(Boro))

+β(AreaIrri(Rabi)) log(AreaIrri(Rabi)) + γ(propBoro>.3) + δ(P ropRabi>.3)

+θ(P ropBoro>.3,P ropRabi>.3) + 

with |T otalIrri ∼ N (0, σ 2 (T otalIrri)−2 )

This is an ANOCOVA model with regressors log(AreaIrri(Boro)) and log(AreaIrri(Rabi)).

The coefficients β(AreaIrri(Boro)) and β(AreaIrri(Rabi)) can be interpreted as follows,
β(AreaIrri(Boro)) measures the relative change in groundwater depletion when relative
change in Area of Boro irrigation is one unit and similarly β(AreaIrri(Rabi)) measures
the relative change in groundwater depletion when Area of Rabi irrigation changes by
one unit in relative sense. Since only the difference of the factors in different levels are
estimable we assume the factor effects at the first level(i.e level = FALSE) to be zero.
Then γ(T RU E) measures the excess effect of more Boro irrigation, than more irrigation, on
the relative changes in groundwater depletion. Interpretation for δ(T RU E) is equivalent
for Rabi irrigation. With the side restriction that all the θ0 s other than θ(T RU E,T RU E)
are zero, θ(T RU E,T RU E) estimates the interaction effect of more irrigation of both kinds,
than any or none, on relative groundwater depletion.
5 RESULTS OF MODEL FITTING 4

5 Results of Model Fitting

The following results are based on the Modified fitted on the data.

5.1 Graphical View

Figure 3: Fitting Model in the data

Figure 3 shows some outlining points on the data. We exclude those points to do our
analysis.

Figure 4: Data analysis results

Figure 4 gives diagrammatical view of the model residuals. Plots support our as-
sumptions on the errors in the model.

5.2 Residuals
Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
-90.0824 -24.115 -0.8836 24.4081 87.6247
6 CONCLUSION 5

5.3 Coefficients
Factor/Regressor Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(> |t|) Signif
(Intercept) 5.87511 0.24841 23.651 < 2e-16 ***
(side.of.Bhagirathi)1 0.24812 0.0533 4.655 4.79e-06 ***
(side.of.Bhagirathi)2 0.28652 0.06116 4.685 4.18e-06 ***
log(Area.of.Boro.from.SA) 0.1552 0.02639 5.881 1.04e-08 ***
log(Area.of.Rabi.from.SA) 0.27971 0.02486 11.251 < 2e-16 ***
(Prop.Boro > 0.3)TRUE -0.68454 0.06905 -9.913 < 2e-16 ***
(Prop.Rabi > 0.3)TRUE -0.62339 0.07499 -8.313 2.85e-15 ***
(Prop.Boro > 0.3)TRUE : 0.65773 0.09557 6.882 3.21e-11 ***
(Prop.Rabi > 0.3)TRUE
Signif. codes: 0 *** 0.001 ** 0.01 * 0.05 . 0.1 1

5.4 Goodness of fit:

Residual standard error: 34.06 on 314 degrees of freedom
(1 observation deleted due to missingness)
R2 = 0.5741, R¯2 = 0.5646, AIC = 459.212

5.5 Analysis of Variance Table

Source of variation Df Sum Sq Mean Sq F value Pr(>F) Signif
(side.of.Bhagirathi) 2 155659 77829 67.0759 < 2.2e-16 ***
log(Area.of.Boro.from.SA) 1 6916 6916 5.9601 0.01519 *
log(Area.of.Rabi.from.SA) 1 177744 177744 153.1852 < 2.2e-16 ***
(Prop.Boro > 0.3) 1 65874 65874 56.7726 5.27e-13 ***
(Prop.Rabi > 0.3) 1 29948 29948 25.8099 6.48e-07 ***
(Prop.Boro > 0.3) : 1 54960 54960 47.3663 3.21e-11 ***
(Prop.Rabi> 0.3)
Residuals 314 364340 1160
Signif. codes: 0 *** 0.001 ** 0.01 * 0.05 . 0.1 1

6 Conclusion
• The study shows positive effect of relative change in Boro or Rabi irrigation on
relative change in replenishable groundwater. For 1 unit relative change in Boro
irrigation there is a15.52% relative change in replenishable groundwater, while for
Rabi thos value is 27.97%.
• The areas on the east or west of Bhagirathi are more affected in terms of relative
change in replenishable groundwater than that in areas in north of Bhagirathi. This
difference is 24.8% for the east and 28.6% for the west.

• When there is more of irrigation in a block, relative change in replenishable ground-

water is much less (less by 68.45% for Boro and 62.34% for Rabi). Thus the
groundwater in areas, which are prone to irrigation, are not affected as much as
those which are not by same amount of relative increase in irrigation.

• Blocks with more irrigation of both Boro and Rabi are affected more, in terms of
relative change in groundwater depletion, than others (nearly 68% more).

7 Further
The Model only explains 57.41% of the variation. There are necessarily other factors
or independent variables affecting the relative change in R.G.W. With more information
on irrigation in the blocks and detailed information on falling trend in rainy season
(which has been ignored in our study due to large amount of missing data) more specific
conclusions may be reached.