“Groundwater Depletion, Climate Variability and Agricultural Income in Western Uttar Pradesh: An Empirical Research Framework with a Regional Focus on Meerut and Neighboring Districts”

Western Uttar Pradesh combines high-value irrigated agriculture with a falling water table and a more variable climate, and this paper builds and demonstrates a framework to measure what that costs farmers. It studies Meerut and seven neighbouring districts (Baghpat, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Saharanpur, Ghaziabad, Hapur and Bulandshahr) using a block-level panel (16 blocks, 2010-2023) and a household survey (608 farm households). Four models are estimated: a two-way fixed-effects panel, a household Ricardian-type model, an instrumental-variable specification and a threshold model. On the simulated data used here to illustrate the framework, each additional metre of depth to water is associated with a 3.8-4.5 percent fall in net farm income per hectare in the panel and 4.9 percent in the household model; heat-stress days reduce income by about 1.1-1.2 percent each; and the penalty from depth is larger in drought years (an extra 1 percent per metre for every 10-point rainfall deficit). No significant threshold depth or farm-size gradient is detected, and irrigation cost does not statistically mediate the depth effect. Stressed blocks, where water tables fall 0.43 m a year against 0.17 m in safe blocks, earn about 13 percent less than safe blocks and spend about 15 percent more on irrigation. The paper concludes with policy implications for crop diversification, micro-irrigation, energy pricing and aquifer governance. All numerical results are simulated and must be replaced with real estimates before use

groundwater depletion; climate variability; farm income; Western Uttar Pradesh; Meerut; panel data; Ricardian model; sugarcane; paddy

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