Agricultural water management in a water stressed catchment: Lessons from the RIPARWIN Project

Agricultural water management in a water stressed catchment: Lessons from the RIPARWIN Project PDF Author: McCartney, Matthew P., Lankford, B. A., Mahoo, H.
Publisher: IWMI
ISBN: 9290906707
Category : Water-supply, Agricultural
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description
In the face of growing water stress and increasing concerns over the sustainability of water use, Tanzania has, in common with many other countries in Africa, focused largely on the development of more integrated catchment-wide approaches to water management. In the Great Ruaha River Basin, considerable effort has gone into increasing water productivity and the promotion of mechanisms for more efficient allocation of water resources. Over a period of five years, the RIPARWIN project investigated water management in the basin and evaluated the effectiveness of some of the mechanisms that have been introduced. The study findings are relevant to basins in developing countries where there is competition for water and irrigation is one of the main uses.

Agricultural water management in a water stressed catchment: Lessons from the RIPARWIN Project

Agricultural water management in a water stressed catchment: Lessons from the RIPARWIN Project PDF Author: McCartney, Matthew P., Lankford, B. A., Mahoo, H.
Publisher: IWMI
ISBN: 9290906707
Category : Water-supply, Agricultural
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description
In the face of growing water stress and increasing concerns over the sustainability of water use, Tanzania has, in common with many other countries in Africa, focused largely on the development of more integrated catchment-wide approaches to water management. In the Great Ruaha River Basin, considerable effort has gone into increasing water productivity and the promotion of mechanisms for more efficient allocation of water resources. Over a period of five years, the RIPARWIN project investigated water management in the basin and evaluated the effectiveness of some of the mechanisms that have been introduced. The study findings are relevant to basins in developing countries where there is competition for water and irrigation is one of the main uses.

Investing in Agricultural Water Management to Benefit Smallholder Farmers in Tanzania

Investing in Agricultural Water Management to Benefit Smallholder Farmers in Tanzania PDF Author: Meredith Giordano
Publisher: IWMI
ISBN: 9290907533
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 38

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Book Description
The AgWater Solutions Project, carried out between 2009 and 2012, focused on resolving water issues faced by smallholder farmers. The project examined existing Agricultural Water Management (AWM) solutions, together with factors that influence their adoption and scaling up. The project aimed to identify investment opportunities in AWM that have high potential to improve the incomes and food security of poor farmers. The work was undertaken in the African countries of Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia, and in the Indian States of Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. This Working Paper series summarizes results and recommendations from the research carried out in each of these countries and states.

Adaptive and Integrated Water Management

Adaptive and Integrated Water Management PDF Author: Claudia Pahl-Wostl
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3540759417
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
Sustainable water management is a key environmental challenge of the 21st century. This book presents the very latest studies, methods and innovations for managing our water resources from the first International Conference on Adaptive and Integrated Water Management, held in November 2007 in Basel, Switzerland. The book addresses a wide interdisciplinary audience of scientists and professionals from academia, industry, and those involved in policy making.

Water for Food in a Changing World

Water for Food in a Changing World PDF Author: Alberto Garrido
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136808167
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
There is not enough water globally for all the things humans need and want water to do for us. Water supply bubbles are bursting in China, the Middle East and India with potentially serious implications for the global economy and for political stability. Even the United States is depleting groundwater on average 25% faster than it is being replenished. Our thirst for water grows with our population, but the amount of fresh water available on Earth is fixed. If we assume "business as usual" by 2050 about 40% of the projected global population of 9.4 billion is expected to be facing water stress or scarcity. With increasing climate variability being predicted by global climate models, we are likely also to have more people without adequate water more of the time, even in water-rich regions. Irrigation productivity rose dramatically over the past 40 years as a result of the Green Revolution. However, even if we disregard the environmental impacts caused by that revolution, we are no nearer to achieving global food security than we were 40 years ago, as every time we come close to filling the food production gap population growth and ecosystem decline associated with water diversions to human purposes set us back. Our natural and agricultural ecosystems are trying to tell us something. This book pursues these overarching themes connecting to water and food production at global and regional scales. The collection offers a comprehensive discussion of all relevant issues, and offers a wide-ranging discussion with the aim of contributing to the global debate about water and food crises.

Resource Efficiency Complexity and the Commons

Resource Efficiency Complexity and the Commons PDF Author: Bruce Lankford
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134079311
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
The efficient use of natural resources is key to a sustainable economy, and yet the complexities of the physical aspects of resource efficiency are poorly understood. In this challenging book, the author proposes a major advance in our understanding of this topic by analysing resource efficiency and efficiency gains from the perspective of common pool resources, applying this idea particularly to water resources and its use in irrigated agriculture. The author proposes a novel concept of "the paracommons", through which the savings of increased resource efficiency can be viewed. In effect he asks; "who gets the gain of an efficiency gain?" By reusing, economising and avoiding losses, wastes and wastages, freed up resources are available for further use by four ‘destinations’; the same user, parties directly connected to that user, the wider economy or returned to the common pool. The paracommons is thus a commons of – and competition for – resources salvaged by changes to the efficiency of natural resource systems. The idea can be applied to a range of resources such as water, energy, forests and high-seas fisheries. Five issues are explored: the complexity of resource use efficiency; the uncertainty of efficiency interventions and outcomes; destinations of freed up losses, wastes and wastages; implications for resource conservation; and the interconnectedness of users and systems brought about by efficiency changes. The book shows how these ideas put efficiency on a par with other dimensions of resource governance and sustainability such as equity, justice, resilience and access.

The Limits to Scarcity

The Limits to Scarcity PDF Author: Lyla Mehta
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136538933
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Scarcity is considered a ubiquitous feature of the human condition. It underpins much of modern economics and is widely used as an explanation for social organisation, social conflict and the resource crunch confronting humanity's survival on the planet. It is made out to be an all-pervasive fact of our lives - be it of housing, food, water or oil. But has the conception of scarcity been politicized, naturalized, and universalized in academic and policy debates? Has overhasty recourse to scarcity evoked a standard set of market, institutional and technological solutions which have blocked out political contestations, overlooking access as a legitimate focus for academic debates as well as policies and interventions? Theoretical and empirical chapters by leading academics and scholar-activists grapple with these issues by questioning scarcity's taken-for-granted nature. They examine scarcity debates across three of the most important resources - food, water and energy - and their implications for theory, institutional arrangements, policy responses and innovation systems. The book looks at how scarcity has emerged as a totalizing discourse in both the North and South. The 'scare' of scarcity has led to scarcity emerging as a political strategy for powerful groups. Aggregate numbers and physical quantities are trusted, while local knowledges and experiences of scarcity that identify problems more accurately and specifically are ignored. Science and technology are expected to provide 'solutions', but such expectations embody a multitude of unexamined assumptions about the nature of the 'problem', about the technologies and about the institutional arrangements put forward as a 'fix.' Through this examination the authors demonstrate that scarcity is not a natural condition: the problem lies in how we see scarcity and the ways in which it is socially generated.

River Basin Trajectories

River Basin Trajectories PDF Author: François Molle
Publisher: IWMI
ISBN: 1845935381
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
This book contains 11 papers which cover a range of vital topics in the areas of water, agriculture, food security and ecosystems - the entire spectrum of developing and managing water in agriculture, from fully irrigated to fully rainfed lands. They are about people and society, why they decide to adopt certain practices and not others and, in particular, how water management can help poor people. They are about ecosystems - how agriculture affects ecosystems, the goods and services ecosystems provide for food security and how water can be managed to meet both food and environmental security objectives. This is the eighth book in the series.

Demonstrating complexity with a roleplaying simulation

Demonstrating complexity with a roleplaying simulation PDF Author: Janmaat, J.
Publisher: International Water Management Institute (IWMI)
ISBN: 929090819X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 42

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Book Description
Rural people in Nepal and other developing nations are part of complex, social-ecological systems. Efforts to provide assistance to these people must integrate knowledge from a variety of perspectives. This report documents the use of a role-playing game, supported by an agent-based model, to demonstrate the interaction between migration, social capital and the effectiveness of water storage. The importance of these interactions was highlighted by fieldwork conducted at several sites in the Koshi River Basin. The model underlying the game was a stylized representation based on the Indrawati Subbasin northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal. The report highlights that (a) role-playing tournaments can be an effective way to engage technical and policy experts with the complex interactions between the social and physical dimensions of watershed management; and (b) migration and the economic changes which drive these interactions are forces that need to be accepted, and investments in water storage need to be selected depending on how they fit into these trends.

Evaluation of historic, current and future water demand in the Olifants River Catchment, South Africa

Evaluation of historic, current and future water demand in the Olifants River Catchment, South Africa PDF Author: McCartney, Matthew P., Arranz, Roberto
Publisher: IWMI
ISBN: 9290906723
Category : Olifants River Watershed (South Africa)
Languages : en
Pages : 51

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Book Description
Water resource development has played a significant role in the expansion of agriculture and industry in the Olifants River Catchment. However, currently water deficit is one of the major constraints hampering development in the catchment; both the mining and agricultural sectors are producing below optimal levels because of their reliance on insufficient supplies. In this study, the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) model was used to evaluate scenarios of historic, current and future water demand in the catchment. For each scenario, the WEAP model was used to simulate demand in five different sectors (rural, urban, mining, commercial forestry and irrigation) over a 70-year period of varying rainfall and hydrology. Levels of assured supply were estimated for each sector and the economic cost of failing to provide water was predicted. For the future scenarios, the impact of infrastructure development and water conservation measures were assessed. The study illustrates how a relatively simple model can provide useful insight for resource planning and management.

Changing consumption patterns: Implications on food and water demand in India

Changing consumption patterns: Implications on food and water demand in India PDF Author: Amarasinghe, Upali A., Shah, Tushaar, Singh, Om Prakash
Publisher: IWMI
ISBN: 9290906774
Category : Food consumption
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
Increasing income and urbanization are triggering a rapid change in food consumption patterns in India. This report assesses India’s changing food consumption patterns and their implications on future food and water demand. According to the projections made in this study, the total calorie supply would continue to increase, but the dominance of food grains in the consumption basket is likely to decrease by 2050, and the consumption of non-grain crops and animal products would increase to provide a major part of the daily calorie supply. Although the total food grain demand will decrease, the total grain demand is likely to increase with the increasing feed demand for the livestock. The implications of the changing consumption patterns are assessed through consumptive water use (CWU) under the assumptions of full or partial food self-sufficiency.