Your search found 13 records
1 Foster, T.; Hope, R.; Krolikowski, A.; Cohen, I. 2014. Mobile water payments in urban Africa: adoption, implications and opportunities. In Grafton, R. Q.; Wyrwoll, P.; White, C.; Allendes, D. (Eds.). Global water: issues and insights. Canberra, Australia: Australian National University (ANU Press). pp.101-106.
Urban areas ; Water supply ; Water users ; User charges ; Costs / Africa / Kenya / Tanzania / Uganda / Zambia / Kiamumbi
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H046550)
http://press.anu.edu.au/apps/bookworm/view/Global+Water%3A+Issues+and+Insights/11041/ch04.4.xhtml#toc_marker-26
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H046550.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H046550.pdf
(0.27 MB)
2 Foster, T.; Hope, R. 2016. A multi-decadal and social-ecological systems analysis of community waterpoint payment behaviours in rural Kenya. Journal of Rural Studies, 47(Part A):85-96. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2016.07.026]
Water supply ; Groundwater ; Water users ; User charges ; Rural communities ; Collective action ; Consumer behaviour ; Social aspects ; Ecology ; Manual pumps ; Financial situation ; Income ; Models ; Sustainability ; Households / Africa South of Sahara / Kenya / Kwale
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H047768)
(1.83 MB)
Community-based financing of rural water supply operation and maintenance is a well-established policy principle in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet evidence from over 90,000 waterpoints in five sub-Saharan African countries suggests a majority of communities fail to establish and sustain a revenue collection system. As a result, insufficient finances to repair waterpoints can lead to lengthy downtimes or abandonment, threatening the health and welfare of millions of water users forced to revert to unsafe or distant alternatives. Applying a social-ecological systems framework to community waterpoints in rural Kenya, we empirically assess the prevalence and determinants of financial contributions among water users. The analysis draws on multi-decadal data covering 229 years' worth of water committee financial records consisting of more than 53,000 household payments. Results reveal that non-payment and late payment are prevalent, and payment behaviours are predicted by groundwater quality, waterpoint location, productive water use, and rainfall season. The findings reflect the socio-ecological nature of waterpoint sustainability in rural sub-Saharan Africa and confirm that households are not always willing and able to pay for an improved water supply. This situation is symptomatic of a fundamental operation and maintenance financing challenge that must be addressed if the Sustainable Development Goal of universal access to safe water is to be achieved.
3 Foster, T.; Hope, R. 2017. Evaluating waterpoint sustainability and access implications of revenue collection approaches in rural Kenya. Water Resources Research, 53(2):1473-1490. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/2016WR019634]
Water supply ; Rural communities ; Drinking water ; Sustainable development ; Water availability ; Water policy ; Water rates ; Financing ; Manual pumps ; Income generation ; Pricing ; Expenditure ; Operating costs ; Performance evaluation ; Households ; Community involvement / Africa South of Sahara / Kenya / Kwale
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048087)
(3.04 MB)
Water policies in many sub-Saharan African countries stipulate that rural communities are responsible for self-financing their waterpoint’s operation and maintenance. In the absence of policy consensus or evidence on optimal payment models, rural communities adopt a diversity of approaches to revenue collection. This study empirically assesses waterpoint sustainability and access outcomes associated with different revenue collection approaches on the south coast of Kenya. The analysis draws on a unique data set comprising financial records spanning 27 years and 100 communities, operational performance indicators for 200 waterpoints, and water source choices for more than 2000 households. Results suggest communities collecting pay-as-you-fetch fees on a volumetric basis generate higher levels of revenue and experience better operational performance than communities charging flat fees. In both cases, financial flows mirror seasonal rainfall peaks and troughs. These outcomes are tempered by evidence that households are more likely to opt for an unimproved drinking water source when a pay-as-you-fetch system is in place. The findings illuminate a possible tension between financial sustainability and universal access. If the Sustainable Development Goal of "safe water for all" is to become a reality, policymakers and practitioners will need to address this issue and ensure rural water services are both sustainable and inclusive.
4 Foster, T.. 2017. A critical mass analysis of community-based financing of water services in rural Kenya. Water Resources and Rural Development, 10:1-13. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wrr.2017.04.003]
Water supply ; Communities ; Financing ; Sustainability ; Water rates ; Income ; Water users ; User charges ; Collective action ; Manual pumps ; Rural areas ; Households / Africa South of Sahara / Kenya / Kwale
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H048435)
(1.07 MB)
Critical mass dynamics have been widely used to explain the initiation and spread of collective behaviours, from protests and political representation, through to vaccinations and adoption of new technologies. For the first time, this study applies critical mass theory to community waterpoint financial contributions in rural sub-Saharan Africa. The presence of critical mass points, cooperative equilibria and self-reinforcing growth dynamics is empirically evaluated through assessment of multi-decadal waterpoint financial records from rural Kenya, comprising 43,020 household payments over a 26 year period. An examination of month-to-month changes in user contribution rates and financial record continuity suggests contribution levels remain relatively stable once more than 60% of water users are paying. Revenue collection systems tend to become unstable and are prone to collapse during the wet season if user contributions drop below a 60% threshold, but appear to be more resilient in dry season with evidence of self-reinforcing growth dynamics when 40–60% of users contribute. Results reveal that some communities are able to sustain their waterpoint over a long period of time even if a moderate proportion of users do not contribute financially. The analysis also highlights the influence of climate patterns on community-based financing, and the fragility of collective behaviours during wetter periods. Further investigation is needed to assess what dynamics emerge in a more representative sample of waterpoints, particularly in the first few years after installation when failures commonly occur.
5 Rad, M. R.; Brozovic, N.; Foster, T.; Mieno, T. 2020. Effects of instantaneous groundwater availability on irrigated agriculture and implications for aquifer management. Resource and Energy Economics, 59:101129. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.reseneeco.2019.101129]
Groundwater management ; Water availability ; Irrigated farming ; Aquifers ; Water demand ; Water use ; Pumping ; Costs ; Crop yield ; Farmers ; Policies ; Decision making ; Models / USA / Nebraska
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049565)
(2.00 MB)
Groundwater is an important input for agricultural production in many parts of the world. Aquifer depletion has been shown to affect the rate that groundwater can be extracted from an aquifer. In this paper, we develop an analytical framework that accounts explicitly for the effects of limited instantaneous groundwater extraction rate (well capacity) on a producer's irrigation decisions. We show that limited well capacities can affect the producer’s groundwater use and profit. We draw three important insights from these findings. First, we demonstrate that the price elasticity of demand for groundwater is higher for lower well capacities. Second, farmers’ irrigation decisions are non-monotonic with respect to well capacity and climate conditions. Under a drier climate, producers with greater well capacities increase their groundwater use, and producers with lower well capacities reduce their water use. Third, through numerical analysis, we show that considering spatial heterogeneity in well capacities is important for estimating the cost-effectiveness and distributional impacts of groundwater management policies. Our results shed new light on the importance of extraction capacity for groundwater management policies and the potential impacts of climate change on agricultural production.
6 Urfels, A.; Shakya, S. M.; Maharjan, S.; Lohanee, B. D.; Pandey, V.; Khadka, Manohara; Adhikari, S.; Neupane, A.; Karki, S.; Acharya, S.; Foster, T.; Krupnik, T. 2021. Framework for co-development of an open hydrological data system to enhance climate resilience in climate vulnerable countries: experience from a digital groundwater monitoring pilot in Nepal. [Abstract only]. Paper presented at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly 2021, Online, 19-30 April 2021. 2p. [doi: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-15104]
Groundwater ; Monitoring ; Hydrological data ; Frameworks ; Climate change ; Resilience ; Vulnerability ; Stakeholders / Nepal
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050377)
https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU21/EGU21-15104.html?pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H050377.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H050377.pdf
(0.27 MB) (278 KB)
7 Kelly, T. D.; Foster, T.. 2021. AquaCrop-OSPy: bridging the gap between research and practice in crop-water modeling. Agricultural Water Management, 254:106976. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2021.106976]
Crop modelling ; Crop water use ; Optimization methods ; Irrigation scheduling ; Water demand ; Water management ; Climate change ; Soil moisture ; Simulation / USA
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050484)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377421002419/pdfft?md5=f0ca8b964b513f3c54f1aeb9868d5e17&pid=1-s2.0-S0378377421002419-main.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H050484.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H050484.pdf
(3.48 MB) (3.48 MB)
Crop-growth models are powerful tools for supporting optimal planning and management of agricultural water use globally. However, use of crop models for this purpose often requires advanced programming expertize and computational resources, limiting the potential uptake in integrated water management research by practitioners such as water managers, policymakers, and irrigation service providers. In this article, we present AquaCrop-OSPy (ACOSP), an open source, Python implementation of the crop-water productivity model AquaCrop. The model provides a user friendly, flexible and computationally efficient solution to support agricultural water management, which can be readily integrated with other Python modules or code bases and run instantly via a web browser using the cloud computing platform Google Colab without the need for local installation. This article describes how to run basic simulations using AquaCrop-OSPy, along with more advanced analyses such as optimizing irrigation schedules and evaluating climate change impacts. Each use case is paired with a Jupyter Notebook, which offer an interactive learning environment for users and can be readily adapted to address a range of common irrigation planning and management challenges faced by researcher, policymakers and businesses in both developed and developing countries (https://github.com/thomasdkelly/aquacrop).
8 Foster, T.; Adhikari, R.; Adhikari, S.; Justice, S.; Tiwari, B.; Urfels, A.; Krupnik, T. J. 2021. Improving pumpset selection to support intensification of groundwater irrigation in the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains. Agricultural Water Management, 256:107070. (Online first) [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2021.107070]
Groundwater irrigation ; Pumping ; Technology ; Intensification ; Food security ; Energy ; Nexus ; Irrigation systems ; Tube wells ; Fuel consumption ; Supply chains ; Agricultural productivity ; Farmers ; Livelihoods ; Policies / South Asia / India / Nepal / Indo-Gangetic Plains / Rupandehi
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050543)
(5.02 MB)
Intensification of groundwater irrigation is central to goals of improving food security and reducing chronic poverty faced by millions of rural households across the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains (EIGP) of Nepal and parts of eastern India. At present, levels of groundwater use and access in the EIGP lag far behind other areas of South Asia despite abundant available groundwater resources. A key reason for prevailing access constraints is the dependence on diesel pumpsets for accessing groundwater, which are typically unsubsidised and therefore expensive to purchase and operate. To date, efforts to reduce access costs have focused almost exclusively on how to incentivise adoption of alternative electric or solar-powered pumping technologies, which are viewed as being cheaper to operate and less environmentally damaging due to their lower operational carbon emissions. In contrast, there has been little attention paid to identifying opportunities to make existing diesel pump systems more cost effective for farmers to operate in order to support adaptation to climate change and reduce poverty. In this study, we use evidence from 116 detailed in-situ pump tests along with interviews with pumpset dealers, mechanics and farmers in the Nepal Terai to assess how and why fuel efficiency and operational costs of diesel pump irrigation are affected by farmers’ pumpset selection decisions. We show that costs diesel pumpset irrigation can be reduced significantly by supporting and incentivising farmers (e.g., through equipment advisories, improved supply chains for maintenance services and spare parts) to invest in newer low-cost, portable and smaller horsepower pumpset designs that are more effectively matched to local operating conditions in the EIGP than older Indian manufactured engines that have historically been preferred by farmers in the region. Such interventions can help to unlock potential for intensified irrigation water use in the EIGP, contributing to goals of improving agricultural productivity and resilience to climate extremes while also strengthening farmers capacity to invest in emerging low-carbon pumping technologies.
9 Akpoti, K.; Higginbottom, T. P.; Foster, T.; Adhikari, R.; Zwart, Sander J. 2022. Mapping land suitability for informal, small-scale irrigation development using spatial modelling and machine learning in the Upper East Region, Ghana. Science of the Total Environment, 803:149959. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.149959]
Farmer-led irrigation ; Small scale systems ; Land suitability ; Modelling ; Machine learning ; Food security ; Semiarid zones ; Groundwater ; Water availability ; Land use ; Land cover ; Soil properties ; Dry season ; Forecasting ; Reservoirs ; Population density ; Socioeconomic aspects / Ghana
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050670)
(7.61 MB)
Small-scale irrigation has gained momentum in recent years as one of the development priorities in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, farmer-led irrigation is often informal with little support from extension services and a paucity of data on land suitability for irrigation. To map the spatial explicit suitability for dry season small-scale irrigation, we developed a method using an ensemble of boosted regression trees, random forest, and maximum entropy machine learning models for the Upper East Region of Ghana. Both biophysical predictors including surface and groundwater availability, climate, topography and soil properties, and socio-economic predictors which represent demography and infrastructure development such as accessibility to cities and proximity to roads were considered. We assessed that 179,584 ± 49,853 ha is suitable for dry-season small-scale irrigation development when only biophysical variables are considered, and 158,470 ± 27,222 ha when socio-economic variables are included alongside the biophysical predictors, representing 77-89% of the current rainfed-croplands. Travel time to cities, accessibility to small reservoirs, exchangeable sodium percentage, surface runoff that can be potentially stored in reservoirs, population density, proximity to roads, and elevation percentile were the top predictors of small-scale irrigation suitability. These results suggested that the availability of water alone is not a sufficient indicator for area suitability for small-scale irrigation. This calls for strategic road infrastructure development and an improvement in the support to farmers for market accessibility. The suitability for small-scale irrigation should be put in the local context of market availability, demographic indicators, and infrastructure development.
10 Higginbottom, T. P.; Adhikari, R.; Dimova, R.; Redicker, S.; Foster, T.. 2021. Performance of large-scale irrigation projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nature Sustainability, 4:501-508. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-00670-7]
Irrigation programs ; Irrigation schemes ; Large scale systems ; Performance assessment ; Infrastructure ; Water balance ; Policies ; Political aspects ; Food security / Africa South of Sahara
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050695)
(1.83 MB)
After a 30-year hiatus, large-scale irrigation projects have returned to the development agenda in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, the magnitude and drivers of past schemes’ performance remains poorly understood. We quantify the performance, measured as the proportion of proposed irrigated area delivered, of 79 irrigation schemes from across SSA by comparing planning documents with estimates of current scheme size from satellite-derived land-cover maps. We find overwhelming evidence that investments have failed to deliver promised benefits, with schemes supporting a median 16% of proposed area, only 20 (25%) delivering >80% and 16 (20%) completely inactive. Performance has not improved over six decades and we find limited relationships with commonly stated causes of failure such as scheme size and climate. We attribute these findings to political and management frameworks underpinning irrigation development in SSA. First, an emphasis on national food security promotes low-value crops, reducing economic viability. Second, proposals are unrealistically large, driven by optimism bias and political incentives. Finally, centralized bureaucracies lack the technical expertise, local knowledge and financial resources to ensure long-term maintenance. Our findings highlight the need for greater learning from past investments’ outcomes if improvements in agricultural productivity and water security across SSA are to be realized.
11 Ghansah, B.; Foster, T.; Higginbottom, T. P.; Adhikari, R.; Zwart, Sander J. 2022. Monitoring spatial-temporal variations of surface areas of small reservoirs in Ghana’s Upper East Region using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and machine learning. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, 125:103082. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pce.2021.103082]
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050847)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S147470652100125X/pdfft?md5=59bd7a98182c33a44b62aaf447495217&pid=1-s2.0-S147470652100125X-main.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H050847.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H050847.pdf
(9.19 MB) (9.19 MB)
Small reservoirs are one of the most important sources of water for irrigation, domestic and livestock uses in the Upper East Region (UER) of Ghana. Despite various studies on small reservoirs in the region, information on their spatial-temporal variations is minimal. Therefore, this study performed a binary Random Forest classification on Sentinel-2 images for five consecutive dry seasons between 2015 and 2020. The small reservoirs were then categorized according to landscape positions (upstream, midstream, and downstream) using a flow accumulation process. The classification produced an average overall accuracy of 98% and a root mean square error of 0.087 ha. It also indicated that there are currently 384 small reservoirs in the UER (of surface area between 0.09 and 37 ha), with 20% of them newly constructed between the 2016-17 and 2019-20 seasons. The study revealed that upstream reservoirs have smaller sizes and are likely to dry out during the dry season while downstream reservoirs have larger sizes and retain substantial amounts of water even at the end of the dry season. The results further indicated that about 78% of small reservoirs will maintain an average of 54% of their water surface area by the end of the dry season. This indicates significant water availability which can be effectively utilized to expand dry season irrigation. Overall, we demonstrate that landscape positions have significant impact on the spatial-temporal variations of small reservoirs in the UER. The study also showed the effectiveness of remote sensing and machine learning algorithms as tools for monitoring small reservoirs.
12 Urfels, A.; Mausch, K.; Harris, D.; McDonald, A. J.; Kishore, A.; Balwinder-Singh; van Halsema, G.; Struik, P. C.; Craufurd, P.; Foster, T.; Singh, V.; Krupnik, T. 2023. Farm size limits agriculture's poverty reduction potential in Eastern India even with irrigation-led intensification. Agricultural Systems, 207:103618. (Online first) [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2023.103618]
Farm size ; Poverty reduction ; Intensification ; Food security ; Climate resilience ; Smallholders ; Rice ; Sustainable agriculture ; Cropping systems ; Households ; Sustainable Development Goals ; Farm income ; Crop production ; Value chains / South Asia / India / Bihar / Indo-Gangetic Plains
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051731)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X23000239/pdfft?md5=2a024959f5d2befb681e065be718b7c8&pid=1-s2.0-S0308521X23000239-main.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H051731.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H051731.pdf
(4.48 MB) (4.48 MB)
CONTEXT: Millions of people living in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (EGP) of India engage in agriculture to support their livelihoods yet are income poor, and food and climate insecure. To address these challenges, policymakers and development programs invest in irrigation-led agricultural intensification. However, the evidence for agricultural intensification to lift farmers' incomes above the poverty line remains largely anecdotal.
OBJECTIVE: The main objective of this study is to use a large household survey (n = 15,572; rice: 8244, wheat: 7328; 2017/18) to assess the link between agricultural intensification and personal daily incomes from farming (FPDI) in the rice-wheat systems of the EGP – the dominant cropping system of the region.
METHODS: We use the Intensification Benefit Index (IBI), a measure that relates farm size and household size to FPDI, to assess how daily incomes from rice-wheat production change with irrigation-led intensification across the EGP.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Relative to the international poverty line of 1.90 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)$ day-1 and accounting for variations in HH size in the analysis, we found that small farm sizes limit the potential for agricultural intensification from irrigation to transform the poverty status of households in the bottom three quartiles of the IBI. The estimated median FPDI of households with intensified systems in the bottom three quartiles is only 0.51 PPP$ day-1 (a 0.15 PPP$ gain). The median FPDI increases to 2.10 PPP$ day-1 for households in the upper quartile of the IBI distribution (a 0.30 PPP$ gain). Irrigation-led agricultural intensification of rice-wheat systems in the EGP may provide substantial benefits for resilience to climatic change and food security but achieving meaningful poverty reduction will require complementary investments.
SIGNIFICANCE: Transforming the poverty status of most smallholder farmers in the EGP requires diversified portfolios of rural on- and off-farm income-generating opportunities. While bolstering food- and climate security, agronomic intervention programs should consider smallholders' limited monetary incentives to invest in intensification. Irrigation-led agricultural intensification programs and policies should explicitly account for the heterogeneity in household resources, irrigation levels, and degree of dependence on agricultural income.
OBJECTIVE: The main objective of this study is to use a large household survey (n = 15,572; rice: 8244, wheat: 7328; 2017/18) to assess the link between agricultural intensification and personal daily incomes from farming (FPDI) in the rice-wheat systems of the EGP – the dominant cropping system of the region.
METHODS: We use the Intensification Benefit Index (IBI), a measure that relates farm size and household size to FPDI, to assess how daily incomes from rice-wheat production change with irrigation-led intensification across the EGP.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Relative to the international poverty line of 1.90 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)$ day-1 and accounting for variations in HH size in the analysis, we found that small farm sizes limit the potential for agricultural intensification from irrigation to transform the poverty status of households in the bottom three quartiles of the IBI. The estimated median FPDI of households with intensified systems in the bottom three quartiles is only 0.51 PPP$ day-1 (a 0.15 PPP$ gain). The median FPDI increases to 2.10 PPP$ day-1 for households in the upper quartile of the IBI distribution (a 0.30 PPP$ gain). Irrigation-led agricultural intensification of rice-wheat systems in the EGP may provide substantial benefits for resilience to climatic change and food security but achieving meaningful poverty reduction will require complementary investments.
SIGNIFICANCE: Transforming the poverty status of most smallholder farmers in the EGP requires diversified portfolios of rural on- and off-farm income-generating opportunities. While bolstering food- and climate security, agronomic intervention programs should consider smallholders' limited monetary incentives to invest in intensification. Irrigation-led agricultural intensification programs and policies should explicitly account for the heterogeneity in household resources, irrigation levels, and degree of dependence on agricultural income.
13 Kelly, T. D.; Foster, T.; Schultz, D. M. 2023. Assessing the value of adapting irrigation strategies within the season. Agricultural Water Management, 275:107986. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2022.107986]
Irrigation scheduling ; Optimization methods ; Agricultural water use ; Uncertainty ; Water scarcity ; Weather ; Irrigation management ; Models ; Farmers ; Soil moisture ; Water use ; Water productivity ; Rain ; Case studies / United States of America / Nebraska
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051992)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377422005339/pdfft?md5=2aa76d300211335af481f7f44bdc18ae&pid=1-s2.0-S0378377422005339-main.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H051992.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H051992.pdf
(5.99 MB) (5.99 MB)
Optimization of irrigation scheduling is a widely proposed solution to enhance agricultural water productivity and mitigate water scarcity. However, there is currently a lack of knowledge about how to most effectively optimize and adapt irrigation decisions under weather and climate uncertainty, or about how the benefits of adaptive irrigation scheduling compare to fixed heuristics commonly used by farmers. In this article, we assess the added value of in-season adaptation of irrigation strategies in comparison to a fixed irrigation strategy that maximizes average profits over a range of plausible weather outcomes, but is not adjusted year-to-year. To perform this assessment, the AquaCrop-OSPy crop-water model is used to simulate a case study of irrigated maize production in a water scarce region in the central United States. Irrigation strategies are defined that maximize mean seasonal profit over a range of historical years. This baseline profit is then compared to the case of adaptive strategies, where the irrigation strategy is re-optimized at multiple stages within each season. Our analysis finds that fixed irrigation heuristics on average achieve over 90 % of potential profits attained with perfect seasonal foresight. In-season adaptation marginally increased agricultural profitability, with greater benefits found when re-optimization occurs more frequently or is accompanied by reliable forecasts of weather for the week ahead. However, the overall magnitude of these additional benefits was small (<5 % further increase in average profits), highlighting that fixed irrigation scheduling rules can be near-optimal when making realistic assumptions about farmers’ potential knowledge of future weather. Since fixed irrigation strategies are easier to design, communicate and implement than data-driven adaptive management strategies, we suggest that implementing these fixed strategies be prioritized over the development of more complex adaptive strategies.
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