Advantages

• For proper nourishment of crops certain amount of water is required. If rainfall is insufficient there will be deficiency in fulfilment of water requirements. Irrigation tries to remove this delicensing caused due to inadequate rainfall. Thus, irrigation comes to the rescue in dry years.
• Irrigation improves the yield of crops and makes people prosperous.
• Irrigation also adds to the wealth of the country in two ways. Firstly, as bumper crops are produced due to irrigation it makes the country self-sufficient in food requirements. Secondly, as the irrigation water is taxed when it is supplied to the cultivators, it adds to the revenue.
• Irrigation makes it possible to grow cash crops which give better returns to the cultivators than the ordinary crops they might have grown in the absence of irrigation fruit gardens, sugarcane, potato, tobacco etc are the cash crops.
• Sometimes large irrigation channels can be used as a means of communication.
• The falls which come across the irrigation channels can be utilized for producing hydroelectric power.
• Domestic advantages should be overlooked irrigation facilitates bathing cattle watering etc… and improves freshwater circulation
• Irrigation improves the groundwater storage as water last due to seepage adds to the groundwater storage.
• Along the banks of large irrigation channels plantation can be successfully done which not only helps introduce social forestry but also improves the environmental status of the region
• New irrigation works are started at the time of famines to employ a large number of populations. These works are called famine works or relief works
• When a watering facility is provided on barren land, the value of this land is appreciated

Disadvantages

• Excessive seepage and leakage of water from marshes and ponds all along the channels. The marshes and the ponds in the course of time become the colonies of the mosquito, which gives rise to a diseases like malaria
• Excessive seepage into the ground raises the water table and this in turn completely saturates the crop root zone. It causes waterlogging in that area.
• It lowers the temperature and makes the locality damp due to the presence of irrigation water
• Under the irrigation canal system, valuable residential and industrial land is lost.
• Initial cost of irrigation projects is very high and thereby the cultivators have to pay more taxes in the form of levy.
• Irrigation works become obstacles in the way of free drainage of water during the rainy season and thus results in submerging standing crops and even villages