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(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H047640)
(1.40 MB)
A water supply system can be impacted by rainfall reduction due to climate change, thereby reducing its supply potential. This highlights the need to understand the system resilience, which refers to the ability to maintain service under various pressures (or disruptions). Currently, the concept of resilience has not yet been widely applied in managing water supply systems. This paper proposed three technical resilience indictors to assess the resilience of a water supply system. A case study analysis was undertaken of the Water Grid system of Queensland State, Australia, to showcase how the proposed indicators can be applied to assess resilience. The research outcomes confirmed that the use of resilience indicators is capable of identifying critical conditions in relation to the water supply system operation, such as the maximum allowable rainfall reduction for the system to maintain its operation without failure. Additionally, resilience indicators also provided useful insight regarding the sensitivity of the water supply system to a changing rainfall pattern in the context of climate change, which represents the system’s stability when experiencing pressure. The study outcomes will help in the quantitative assessment of resilience and provide improved guidance to system operators to enhance the efficiency and reliability of a water supply system.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049679)
(0.83 MB) (848 KB)
Irrigation projects in sub-Saharan Africa are mostly unsustainable because of lack of maintenance by their users or government planners. By contrast, evidence shows that the smallholder farmers are developing and expanding the irrigated land, using their initiatives. Farmer-led irrigation, a revolutionary agricultural intensification approach, is already in progress with the magnitude to significantly transform the living standards of smallholder farmers. However, a rigorous assessment of its impact on household welfare to ascertain this is lacking. This paper bridges this gap by assessing factors influencing the adoption of this particular approach as well as its effects on the farmers’ per capita net crop income. Our data set consists of 608 smallholder farmers in Southern Tanzania and used propensity score matching to estimate the effects of adoption on the per capita net crop income. Our results indicate that the uptake of farmer-led irrigation practices is influenced by drought experience, water user group membership, farmer organization membership, and government extension, as well as the sex of the household head. Further, there was a positive and significant effect on the adopters’ per capita net crop income, thus encouraging the need to promote farmer-led irrigation as a complement to externally promoted innovations in achieving sustainable food security. This study, therefore, recommends that the government should support the farmers’ initiative by improving roads, removing market barriers, and helping farmers who have not yet taken up the initiative. Also, the government should enact regulations to make sure farmer-led irrigation initiatives do not harm the eco-environment such as protecting domestic water users. Finally, the government should leverage microservices to the farmers such as promoting affordable and appropriate credit facilities. It is necessary to continue pursuing this vein of research to gain information regarding the definite impact of the farmer-led irrigation on household welfare.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H053015)
(0.40 MB) (412 KB)
Virtual water was introduced by John Anthony Allan in 1998 as a measure of the amount of water required for the production of goods and services. Following the initiation of the Sustainable Development Goals in recent years, an intensified focus on environmental sustainability, particularly regarding water sustainability, has emerged. In this context, virtual water, as a crucial tool for water resources management, garnering attention from the academic community. Existing studies on virtual water have made significant contributions on quantifying the virtual water content embedded in commodities, delineating cross-regional patterns of virtual water flows, unveiling the temporal evolution and spatial distribution patterns of virtual water trade, assessing the economic valuation of virtual water through shadow pricing techniques, and analyzing the drivers influencing virtual water flows. However, there are still research gaps in the current literature on virtual water trade forecasting, virtual water accounting in different sectors (such as services and light industry), grey water footprint estimation and water scarcity indices. Moreover, virtual water research involves hydrology, economics and ecology. Multidisciplinary crossover will be an important trend in virtual water research in the future. This article seeks to comprehensively review current dialogues and investigations regarding virtual water and virtual water trade, assessing their impacts on a range of natural, social, and economic dimensions, and help scientists advance the frontiers of the field, as well as help policymakers adapt regional trade patterns and manage water resources more efficiently.
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