Your search found 5 records
1 Pierret, Alain; Doussan, C.; Pages, L.; Do, F. C.; Gonkhamdee, S.; Maeght, J. L.; Chintachao, W.; Nandris, D. 2007. Is impeded root growth related to the occurrence of rubber tree Trunk Phloem Necrosis (TPN)?: preliminary results from NE Thailand. Paper presented at IRRDB Annual Meeting, Siem Reap Cambodia, 12-16 November 2007. 10p.
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H041685)
This paper presents the results of a pilot project aimed at unravelling putative links between the occurrence of Trunk Phloem Necrosis (TPN) and impeded root system development in a small rubber tree (RRIM 600) plantation of NE Thailand. To investigate as many root parameters as possible, our methodology included a wide range of techniques: destructive sampling, root mapping, rhizolocation, architectural characterisation of coarse woody roots, and electrical measurements by capacitance and earth impedance. We found that under the environmental conditions that prevail in NE Thailand, there is no relationship between most of the root parameters we measured and TPN, at least within the first meter of the soil profile. This result contrasts with observations previously made in western Africa. However, we found that at a soil depth of ~25 cm where maximum soil bulk density is generally observed, Healthy (H) trees can grow roots of significantly higher Specific Root Length (SRL) than those affected by TPN. The next phase of this work which is part of a multidisciplinary programme on TPN, will therefore focus on root morphological descriptors such as SRL and on the analysis of the deeper parts of rubber tree root systems.
2 Gebregziabher, G. G. 2008. Risk and irrigation investment in a semi-arid economy. Thesis submitted to the Department of Economics and Resource Management, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 207p.
Irrigation programs ; Investment ; Risks ; Markets ; Institutions ; Households ; Stress ; Income ; Agricultural production ; Rainfed farming ; Irrigated farming ; Rain ; Models ; Statistics ; Statistical methods ; Analytical methods ; Highlands ; Policy ; Food shortages ; Food security ; Fertilizers ; Farmers ; Poverty / Ethiopia / Tigray
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H044820)
(1.33 MB)
3 Stevenson, E. G. J.; Ambelu, A.; Caruso, B. A.; Tesfaye, Y.; Freeman, M. C. 2016. Community water improvement, household water insecurity, and women’s psychological distress: an intervention and control study in Ethiopia. PLoS ONE, 11(4):1-13. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0153432]
Water supply ; Community development ; Water availability ; Households ; Water insecurity ; Gender ; Womans status ; Psychological factors ; Stress ; Socioeconomic environment ; Food insecurity ; Harvesting ; Villages / Ethiopia / Amhara Region / South Wello / South Gondar
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048338)
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0153432&type=printable
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H048338.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H048338.pdf
(0.24 MB) (244 KB)
Background
Over 650 million people worldwide lack access to safe water supplies, and even among those who have gained access to ‘improved’ sources, water may be seasonally unreliable, far from homes, expensive, and provide insufficient quantity. Measurement of water access at the level of communities and households remains crude, and better measures of household water insecurity are urgently needed to inform needs assessments and monitoring and evaluation. We set out to assess the validity of a quantitative scale of household water insecurity, and to investigate (1) whether improvements to community water supply reduce water insecurity, (2) whether water interventions affect women’s psychological distress, and (3) the impacts of water insecurity on psychological distress, independent of socio-economic status, food security, and harvest quality.
Methods and Findings
Measures were taken before and one to six months after a community water supply improvement in three villages in rural northern Ethiopia. Villages similar in size and access to water sources and other amenities did not receive interventions, and served as controls. Household water insecurity was assessed using a 21-item scale based on prior qualitative work in Ethiopia. Women’s psychological distress was assessed using the WHO Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20). Respondents were either female heads of household or wives of the heads of household (n = 247 at baseline, n = 223 at endline); 123 households provided data at both rounds. The intervention was associated with a decline of approximately 2 points on the water insecurity scale between baseline and endline compared to the control (beta -1.99; 95% CI’s -3.15, -0.84). We did not find evidence of impact of the intervention on women’s psychological distress. Water insecurity was, however, predictive of psychological distress (p <0.01), independent of household food security and the quality of the previous year’s harvest.
Conclusion
These results contribute to the construct validity of our water insecurity scale, and establish our approach to measuring water insecurity as a plausible means of evaluating water interventions. Improvements to community water supplies were effective in reducing household water insecurity, but not psychological distress, in this population. Water insecurity was an important predictor of psychological distress. This study contributes to an emerging literature on quantitative assessment of household water insecurity, and draws attention to the potential impact of improved access to water on women’s mental well-being.
Over 650 million people worldwide lack access to safe water supplies, and even among those who have gained access to ‘improved’ sources, water may be seasonally unreliable, far from homes, expensive, and provide insufficient quantity. Measurement of water access at the level of communities and households remains crude, and better measures of household water insecurity are urgently needed to inform needs assessments and monitoring and evaluation. We set out to assess the validity of a quantitative scale of household water insecurity, and to investigate (1) whether improvements to community water supply reduce water insecurity, (2) whether water interventions affect women’s psychological distress, and (3) the impacts of water insecurity on psychological distress, independent of socio-economic status, food security, and harvest quality.
Methods and Findings
Measures were taken before and one to six months after a community water supply improvement in three villages in rural northern Ethiopia. Villages similar in size and access to water sources and other amenities did not receive interventions, and served as controls. Household water insecurity was assessed using a 21-item scale based on prior qualitative work in Ethiopia. Women’s psychological distress was assessed using the WHO Self-Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20). Respondents were either female heads of household or wives of the heads of household (n = 247 at baseline, n = 223 at endline); 123 households provided data at both rounds. The intervention was associated with a decline of approximately 2 points on the water insecurity scale between baseline and endline compared to the control (beta -1.99; 95% CI’s -3.15, -0.84). We did not find evidence of impact of the intervention on women’s psychological distress. Water insecurity was, however, predictive of psychological distress (p <0.01), independent of household food security and the quality of the previous year’s harvest.
Conclusion
These results contribute to the construct validity of our water insecurity scale, and establish our approach to measuring water insecurity as a plausible means of evaluating water interventions. Improvements to community water supplies were effective in reducing household water insecurity, but not psychological distress, in this population. Water insecurity was an important predictor of psychological distress. This study contributes to an emerging literature on quantitative assessment of household water insecurity, and draws attention to the potential impact of improved access to water on women’s mental well-being.
4 Kumar, T.; Post, A. E.; Ray, I. 2018. Flows, leaks and blockages in informational interventions: a field experimental study of Bangalore’s water sector. World Development, 106:149-160. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.01.022]
Water supply ; Information dissemination ; Households ; Social welfare ; Income ; Pipes ; Political aspects ; Transparency ; Population ; Socioeconomic environment ; Psychological factors ; Stress ; Experimentation / India / Bangalore
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048795)
(1.14 MB)
Many policies and programs based on informational interventions hinge upon the assumption that providing citizens with information can help improve the quality of public services, or help citizens cope with poor services. We present a causal framework that can be used to identify leaks and blockages in the information production and dissemination process in such programs. We conceptualize the "information pipeline" as a series of connected nodes, each of which constitutes a possible point of blockage. We apply the framework to a field-experimental evaluation of a program that provided households in Bangalore, India, with advance notification of intermittently provided piped water. Our study detected no impacts on household wait times for water or on how citizens viewed the state, but found that notifications reduced stress. Our framework reveals that, in our case, noncompliance among human intermediaries and asymmetric gender relations contributed in large part to these null-to-modest results. Diagnostic frameworks like this should be used more extensively in development research to better understand the mechanisms responsible for program success and failure, to identify subgroups that actually received the intended treatment, and to identify potential leaks and blockages when replicating existing programs in new settings.
5 Rosenstock, T. S.; Nowak, A.; Girvetz, E. (Eds.) 2019. The climate-smart agriculture papers: investigating the business of a productive, resilient and low emission future. Cham, Switzerland: SpringerOpen. 321p. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92798-5]
Climate-smart agriculture ; Climate change adaptation ; Resilience ; Emission ; Forecasting ; Sustainable agriculture ; Farming systems ; Crop production ; Varieties ; Drought tolerance ; Nutrition ; Seed production ; Soils ; Agroforestry ; Participatory approaches ; Public-private cooperation ; Stakeholders ; Smallholders ; Farmers ; Entrepreneurship ; Income ; Agricultural extension ; Innovation ; Supply chain ; Risks ; Uncertainty ; Models ; Policies ; Households ; Welfare ; Women ; Livestock ; Infectious diseases ; Rural finance ; Traditional methods ; Stress ; Religion ; Case studies / Africa / Angola / Zimbabwe / Ethiopia / Kenya / Mozambique / Tanzania / Uganda / Namibia / Planalto / Lushoto
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049125)
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-319-92798-5.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H049125.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H049125.pdf
(8.51 MB) (8.51 MB)
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