Hydroclimatic Trends, Crop Diversification and Sustainable Water Resource Planning in Solapur District, Maharashtra, India: A Decadal Analysis (2014–2025)

Abstract

Semi-arid peninsular India, exemplified by drought-prone Solapur District, faces increasing hydroclimatic variability, groundwater stress, and cropping pattern shifts that together undermine long-term agricultural sustainability despite expanding irrigation.This decadal study (2014–2025) characterises the coupled evolution of hydroclimatic variability, cropping-pattern transitions and groundwater sustainability across the eleven talukas of Solapur District, central Deccan plateau, Maharashtra, India (17°10′–18°32′ N, 74°42′–76°15′ E), and proposes an operational Climate-Resilient Water Resource Planning Framework (CR-WRPF) for semi-arid Indian districts. Decadal monthly rainfall, taluka-wise rainfall, decennial sowing data, productivity benchmarks, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) insurance flows, calamity disbursements and reservoir storage were obtained from district records and cross-validated against India Meteorological Department (IMD) gridded data. Analytical methods comprised descriptive statistics, the Coefficient of Variation (CV, ratio of standard deviation to mean expressed as a percentage), the Mann–Kendall trend test, Sen's slope estimator, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)-compliant Standardized Precipitation Index at three- and twelve-month scales (SPI-3 and SPI-12), the Simpson Diversification Index, a 4 × 4 land-use transition matrix, FAO-56 dual-Kc crop-water demand estimation, Pearson cross-correlation and an equal-weight five-indicator Hydroclimatic Vulnerability Index (HVI). Monsoon (June–September, JJAS) rainfall ranged from 193.9 mm in 2017 (40.3 % of normal) to 689.5 mm in 2025 (143.3 % of normal), with a CV of 32.3 %; the Mann–Kendall Z-statistic was +1.18 (P = 0.24) and Sen's slope +18.6 mm yr⁻¹, while Levene's test confirmed a significant doubling of inter-annual variance between the two halves of the decade (F = 6.04, P = 0.04). Kharif sown area expanded 2.36-fold (193,472 to 457,378 ha) as soybean (+256.7 %), urad (+664.4 %) and kharif maize (+3,131 %) replaced bajra (−24.5 %), kharif jowar (−93.4 %), groundnut (−27.6 %) and cotton (−76.8 %); the Simpson Diversification Index rose from 0.74 (2014–15) to 0.81 (2019–20) and declined to 0.74 (2025–26). Pearson r between SPI-12 and PMFBY compensation was −0.71 (P = 0.02), Ujjani reservoir live storage was −4.61 % in May 2025 despite a wet 2024 kharif, and the 2025 calamity disbursement reached Rs 1,639 crore almost entirely from unseasonal and extreme rainfall. Solapur has transitioned from a stable-deficit rainfall regime into a high-variance regime within a decade, while agricultural intensification has more than doubled crop-water demand and exposed structural over-abstraction of groundwater; three talukas (Sangola, Karmala and Malshiras) concentrate the hydroclimatic risk and should be prioritised for managed aquifer recharge, micro-irrigation expansion, weather-indexed insurance and gazetted crop-water budgeting under a six-pillar CR-WRPF operating across village, taluka and district institutions.