Your search found 11 records
1 Mapedza, Everisto; Tsegai, D.; Bruntrup, M.; McLeman, R. (Eds.) 2019. Drought challenges: policy options for developing countries. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier. 363p. (Current Directions in Water Scarcity Research Volume 2)
Drought tolerance ; Policies ; Developing countries ; Climate change mitigation ; Adaptation ; Weather hazards ; Early warning systems ; Disaster preparedness ; Resilience ; Monitoring ; Satellite observation ; Remote sensing ; Forecasting ; Food security ; Energy ; Water scarcity ; Nexus ; Intercropping ; Maize ; Legumes ; Crop insurance ; Livestock management ; Forage ; Sustainable land management ; Rainwater harvesting ; Strategies ; Impact assessment ; Gender ; Small scale farming ; Smallholders ; Farmers ; Migration ; Conflicts ; Indigenous knowledge ; Semiarid zones ; Drylands ; SADC countries ; Living standards ; Households ; Social protection ; Rural areas ; Pastoralists ; Communities / Africa South of Sahara / Southern Africa / East Africa / Latin America / South Asia / USA / Brazil / Mexico / Colombia / United Republic of Tanzania / Uganda / Ethiopia / Kenya / Mali / India / Yucatan / Xuilub / Andhra Pradesh / Laikipia / Lincoln / Colorado
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: IWMI Record No: H049366)
(1.39 MB)
2 Dixon, J.; Garrity, D. P.; Boffa, J.-M.; Williams, Timothy Olalekan; Amede, T.; Auricht, C.; Lott, R.; Mburathi, G. (Eds.) 2020. Farming systems and food security in Africa: priorities for science and policy under global change. Oxon, UK: Routledge - Earthscan. 638p. (Earthscan Food and Agriculture Series)
Farming systems ; Food security ; Climate change ; Policies ; Urban agriculture ; Peri-urban agriculture ; Sustainable development ; Irrigated farming ; Large scale systems ; Mixed farming ; Agropastoral systems ; Perennials ; Agricultural productivity ; Intensification ; Diversification ; Farm size ; Land tenure ; Livestock ; Fish culture ; Agricultural extension ; Forests ; Highlands ; Drylands ; Fertilizers ; Soil fertility ; Water management ; Natural resources ; Nutrition security ; Energy ; Technology ; Investment ; Market access ; Trade ; Human capital ; Agricultural population ; Gender ; Women ; Smallholders ; Farmers ; Living standards ; Poverty ; Hunger ; Socioeconomic environment ; Households ; Yield gap ; Tree crops ; Tubers ; Cereal crops ; Root crops ; Maize ; Ecosystem services ; Resilience ; Strategies / Africa South of Sahara / West Africa / East Africa / Southern Africa / Central Africa / Middle East / North Africa / Sahel
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049739)
(103 MB)
3 Porras, G. L.; Stringer, L. C.; Quinn, C. H. 2020. Building dryland resilience: three principles to support adaptive water governance. Ecological Economics, 177:106770. (Online first) [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106770]
Drylands ; Water governance ; Resilience ; Climate change ; Land degradation ; Environmental effects ; Ecosystem services ; Stakeholders ; Institutions ; Social aspects ; Conflicts ; Uncertainty
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H049929)
(0.23 MB)
Increasing dryland degradation and expansion shows that attempts to strengthen dryland resilience in the face of land degradation and climate change have not been successful. If current development pathways do not change, future prospects for the drylands are worrisome: potential large-scale migration, increasing water scarcity and land degradation, growing poverty, along with significant losses of key ecosystem services that support dryland social-ecological functioning. Based on our empirical research and the wider literature, we identify an important barrier to achieving resilience: poor integration of institutional and other human factors in shaping adaptive capacity, into ecosystem management. By exposing the need for a better understanding of the institutional setting, system stressors, and the human potential to face uncertainty, this paper integrates resilience and vulnerability approaches with adaptive governance, elucidating three principles that must be considered when moving towards more adaptive water governance. Use of these principles could represent a way forward to mitigate dryland degradation and the problems related to conflicts, marginalisation, and migration, increasing dryland resilience through water governance. The next steps should be the implementation of these principles in drylands or any ecosystem with undesirable states of water governance, to better integrate societal factors in efforts to strengthen dryland resilience.
4 Allan, T.; Bromwich, B.; Keulertz, M.; Colman, A. (Eds.) 2019. The Oxford handbook of food, water and society. New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press. 926p. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190669799.001.0001]
Food systems ; Water systems ; Society ; Food security ; Water security ; Food supply chains ; Value chains ; Water resources ; Water management ; Virtual water ; Water footprint ; Agricultural water use ; Agricultural trade ; Conservation agriculture ; Irrigation management ; Water scarcity ; Natural capital ; Political aspects ; Policies ; Municipal water ; Water demand ; Pollution prevention ; Agricultural production ; Transformation ; Wheat ; Coffee industry ; Rice ; Oil palms ; Meat ; Beef ; Pricing ; Pesticides ; Farmers ; Water user associations ; Gender ; Feminization ; Household consumption ; Diet ; Hunger ; Malnutrition ; Obesity ; Poverty ; Sustainability ; Technology ; Subsidies ; Ecosystem services ; Infrastructure ; Drought ; Flooding ; Soil erosion ; Semiarid zones ; Arid zones ; Drylands ; WTO ; Modelling / Africa / Mediterranean Region / North America / Western Asia / United Kingdom / England / Wales / USA / Brazil / Australia / Jordan / Israel / South Africa / California / Cape Town / Sonoran Desert
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: 333.91 G000 ALL Record No: H049524)
(1.26 MB)
Society’s greatest use of water is in food production; a fact that puts farmers centre stage in global environmental management. Current management of food value chains, however, is not well set up to enable farmers to undertake their dual role of feeding a growing population and stewarding natural resources. This book considers the interconnected issues of real water in the environment and “virtual water” in food value chains and investigates how society influences both fields. This perspective draws out considerable challenges for food security and for environmental stewardship in the context of ongoing global change. The book also discusses these issues by region and with global overviews of selected commodities. Innovation relevant to the kind of change needed for the current food system to meet future challenges is reviewed in light of the findings of the regional and thematic analysis.
5 Echchelh, A.; Hess, T.; Sakrabani, R.; Prigent, S.; Stefanakis, A. I. 2021. Towards agro-environmentally sustainable irrigation with treated produced water in hyper-arid environments. Agricultural Water Management, 243:106449. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2020.106449]
Wastewater irrigation ; Irrigation management ; Environmental sustainability ; Arid climate ; Water reuse ; Irrigation water ; Water quality ; Costs ; Soil salinity ; Drylands ; Crop water use ; Crop yield ; Strategies ; Energy consumption ; Gas production ; Oil production ; Case studies ; Models / Arab Countries
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050105)
(1.58 MB)
Produced water (PW) is the main waste stream generated from oil and gas extraction. Nowadays, half of the global PW volume is managed through environmentally controversial and expensive disposal practices, such as re-injection through deep wells. In dry areas such as in the Arabian Peninsula, PW could be reused to irrigate crops, creating environmental, economic and social value. However, the quality of most PWs remains challenging as their high salinity, sodicity and alkalinity can degrade soil fertility and crop yield. Mitigating these negative impacts is costly as it requires specific PW treatment and irrigation management. Thus, the environmental sustainability and the cost of irrigation with PW are uncertain. The aims of this paper was to assess the agro-environmental sustainability of irrigating crops with PW in hot and hyper-arid climate and to estimate the operating cost of reusing PW for irrigation in order to compare this PW management approach to PW disposal in terms of environmental impacts and financial cost. To this end, a soil-water model was used to simulate irrigation of jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis) with oilfield-PW. Different irrigation strategies combining over-irrigation, PW blending and desalination were tested to preserve the soil structural stability and the crop yield. The operational costs of identified sustainable scenarios were estimated using a cost analysis. In this case study, the simulations showed that using an irrigation volume up to ~390 % of the crop water needs with a blend composed of raw and desalinated PW in a 2:1 ratio could preserve the soil structural stability and the crop yield. However, for irrigation, the least-cost option was to mix raw and desalinated PW in a 1:4 ratio and to reduce the irrigation amount to just meet the crop water needs. Although the cost of managing PW in irrigation remains up to 2.5 times higher than PW disposal, this practice might be competitive considering the crop value generated and the increasing need for sustainable alternatives to PW disposal.
6 Everard, M.; West, H. 2021. Livelihood security enhancement though innovative water management in dryland India. Water International, 25p. (Online first) [doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2021.1874780]
Livelihoods ; Water security ; Water management ; Innovation ; Drylands ; Ecosystem services ; Community management ; Governance ; Assessment ; Groundwater ; Remote sensing ; Soil moisture ; Normalized difference vegetation index ; Semiarid zones ; Villages / India / Rajasthan / Salt Lake Region / Laporiya / Antoli
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050228)
(5.05 MB)
Locally nuanced community-based shallow groundwater management interventions have proven important in saline and sodic monsoonal regions. A mixed methods approach characterizes achievement of regeneration of the formerly degraded socio-ecological system of Laporiya village in the semi-arid Salt Lake region of Rajasthan state (India), with a focus on locally adapted chauka systems. Local people are key participants and agents as well as principal beneficiaries of innovative nature-based management interventions. Technological innovations and governance are adapted to environmental processes and local livelihood priorities, resisting imposed engineered solutions. Findings are transferrable to dryland areas facing similar challenges of declining water and livelihood security.
7 Kebede, S.; Charles, K.; Godfrey, S.; MacDonald, A.; Taylor, R. G. 2021. Regional-scale interactions between groundwater and surface water under changing aridity: evidence from the River Awash Basin, Ethiopia. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 15p. (Online first) [doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2021.1874613]
Groundwater flow ; Surface water ; Drylands ; River basins ; Water security ; Lakes ; Reservoirs ; Water resources ; Aquifers ; Stream flow ; Discharges ; Salinity ; Irrigation water ; Water budget ; Wetlands ; Hydrology ; Electrical conductivity ; Isotopes / Ethiopia / Awash River Basin / Lake Beseka
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050234)
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02626667.2021.1874613
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H050234.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H050234.pdf
(8.05 MB) (8.05 MB)
Relationships between surface waters and groundwaters at basin scale are rarely investigated but have important implications for water resource development and management. Here, we integrate evidence from geochemical tracers and piezometry to advance the understanding of regional-scale, groundwater–surface water interactions in the River Awash Basin of Ethiopia. Hydrological characteristics are consistent with those observed in other semi-arid and arid basins where rivers are predominantly losing and act as a source of recharge rather than as a sink for groundwater discharge. Further, regional groundwater flow originating from the highlands exits the catchment rather than discharging to the riverine drainage. Consequently, groundwater abstraction from several regional-scale aquifers in the lowlands is not expected to impact river flow. However, salinity presents a major threat to irrigation and water supply. We identify critical areas for managing inflows, water use, wetlands and water quality that have significant implications for water security across the basin.
8 Kebede, S.; Taye, Meron Teferi. 2021. Groundwater scarcity and management in the arid areas in East Africa. In Mukherjee, A.; Scanlon, B. R.; Aureli, A.; Langan, Simon; Guo, H.; McKenzie, A. A. (Eds.). Global groundwater: source, scarcity, sustainability, security, and solutions. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier. pp.177-186. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-818172-0.00013-X]
Groundwater management ; Water scarcity ; Arid zones ; Drylands ; Hydrogeology ; Drinking water ; Water security ; Water availability ; Sanitation ; Hygiene ; Sustainability ; Water quality ; Salinity ; Aquifers / East Africa
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: IWMI Record No: H050269)
Arid areas in East Africa are characterized by physical water scarcity. The physical water scarcity is further exacerbated by poor water quality (mainly salinity and fluoride) of mainly groundwater sources. Combined physical water scarcity and poor water quality makes the region a hydrogeologically difficult environment. Nevertheless, some viable high-yielding aquifers exist in East Africa. Difficult hydrogeology means that the best practices of reaching rural dwellers, towns, and urban centers require specialized financial, technical, and engineering approaches. The chapter describes the hydrogeology difficulty and the ongoing management strategies and its implications for the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene sector in East Africa arid regions.
9 Lu, D.; Lu, Y. 2021. Spatiotemporal variability of water ecosystem services can be effectively quantified by a composite indicator approach. Ecological Indicators, 130:108061. (Online first) [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.108061]
Water resources ; Ecosystem services ; Ecological restoration ; Watersheds ; Runoff ; Drylands ; Climate change ; Land use change ; Remote sensing ; Vegetation ; Monitoring / China / Loess Plateau
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050559)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X21007263/pdfft?md5=7f2242c5bce41f030df36d52b387f78b&pid=1-s2.0-S1470160X21007263-main.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H050559.pdf
https://vlibrary.iwmi.org/pdf/H050559.pdf
(4.70 MB) (4.70 MB)
Ecological restoration will be promoted globally as a strategic solution supporting the relevant sustainable development goals including land degradation neutrality. However, this restorative approach is facing challenges from climate change and anthropogenic land-use change. One of these acute challenges is to balance ecological restoration and water ecosystem services particularly in dryland areas that are the most vulnerable to land degradation and climate change. Therefore, it is critical to understand the spatiotemporal variability of water ecosystem services in a changing environment on a regional scale. To gain this understanding, this paper formulates a composite indicator approach by integrating gross primary productivity (GPP) and waterbodies derived from remote sensing with key soil, climate, and topographic variables. The water ecosystem service index (WESI) was quantified in 10 watersheds of the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) region during 2000–2018 and found to be correlated positively with the surface runoff of these watersheds at high confidence levels. Then WESI is used in the whole CLP. The results of WESI indicate that about 90% of the CLP is low in water ecosystem services and about 45% of the CLP experienced significant increases for water ecosystem services under the impacts of large scale vegetation restoration, climate change, and land-use change. The WESI approach provides an efficient alternative to the complex modelling approaches that need much more ground based monitoring data. The WESI is useful for mapping the spatial pattern and temporal trends of regional water ecosystem services that are critical for ecological restoration and land-use planning in a changing environment.
10 Leakey, R. R. B.; Tientcheu Avana, M.-L.; Awazi, N. P.; Assogbadjo, A. E.; Mabhaudhi, Tafadzwanashe; Hendre, P. S.; Degrande, A.; Hlahla, S.; Manda, L. 2022. The future of food: domestication and commercialization of indigenous food crops in Africa over the third decade (2012–2021). Sustainability, 14(4):2355. (Special issue: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Mainstreaming Underutilized Crops) [doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/su14042355]
Food crops ; Indigenous organisms ; Domestication ; Commercialization ; Agroforestry ; Tree crops ; Genetic improvement ; Medicinal properties ; Ethnobotany ; Nutritional value ; Nonwood forest products ; Vegetative propagation ; Trade ; Marketing ; Cultivation ; Natural resources management ; Food security ; Livelihoods ; Policies ; Poverty alleviation ; Rural development ; Drylands ; Lowland ; Highlands / North Africa / West Africa / East Africa / Southern Africa / Central Africa / Sahel
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050971)
(1.62 MB) (1.62 MB)
This paper follows the transition from ethnobotany to a deeper scientific understanding of the food and medicinal properties of African agroforestry tree products as inputs into the start of domestication activities. It progresses on to the integration of these indigenous trees as new crops within diversified farming systems for multiple social, economic and environmental benefits. From its advent in the 1990s, the domestication of indigenous food and non-food tree species has become a global programme with a strong African focus. This review of progress in the third decade is restricted to progress in Africa, where multi-disciplinary research on over 59 species has been reported in 759 research papers in 318 science publications by scientists from over 833 research teams in 70 countries around the world (532 in Africa). The review spans 23 research topics presenting the recent research literature for tree species of high priority across the continent, as well as that in each of the four main ecological regions: the humid zone of West and Central Africa; the Sahel and North Africa; the East African highlands and drylands; and the woody savannas of Southern Africa. The main areas of growth have been the nutritional/medicinal value of non-timber forest products; the evaluation of the state of natural resources and their importance to local people; and the characterization of useful traits. However, the testing of putative cultivars; the implementation of participatory principles; the protection of traditional knowledge and intellectual property rights; and the selection of elite trees and ideotypes remain under-researched. To the probable detriment of the upscaling and impact in tropical agriculture, there has been, at the international level, a move away from decentralized, community-based tree domestication towards a laboratory-based, centralized approach. However, the rapid uptake of research by university departments and national agricultural research centres in Africa indicates a recognition of the importance of the indigenous crops for both the livelihoods of rural communities and the revitalization and enhanced outputs from agriculture in Africa, especially in West Africa. Thus, on a continental scale, there has been an uptake of research with policy relevance for the integration of indigenous trees in agroecosystems and their importance for the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. To progress this in the fourth decade, there will need to be a dedicated Centre in Africa to test and develop cultivars of indigenous crops. Finally, this review underpins a holistic approach to mitigating climate change, as well as other big global issues such as hunger, poverty and loss of wildlife habitat by reaping the benefits, or ‘profits’, from investment in the five forms of Capital, described as ‘land maxing’. However, policy and decision makers are not yet recognizing the potential for holistic and transformational adoption of these new indigenous food crop opportunities for African agriculture. Is ‘political will’ the missing sixth capital for sustainable development?
11 Wang-Erlandsson, L.; Tobian, A.; van der Ent, R. J.; Fetzer, I.; te Wierik, S.; Porkka, M.; Staal, A.; Jaramillo, F.; Dahlmann, H.; Singh, C.; Greve, P.; Gerten, D.; Keys, P. W.; Gleeson, T.; Cornell, S. E.; Steffen, W.; Bai, X.; Rockstrom, J. 2022. A planetary boundary for green water. Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, 3(6):380-392. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-022-00287-8]
Freshwater ; Water availability ; Climate change ; Resilience ; Risk ; Soil moisture ; Precipitation ; Vegetation ; Evaporation ; Hydroclimatology ; Biogeochemical cycle ; Carbon cycle ; Ecosystems ; Governance ; Deforestation ; Drylands
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051114)
(1.67 MB)
Green water — terrestrial precipitation, evaporation and soil moisture — is fundamental to Earth system dynamics and is now extensively perturbed by human pressures at continental to planetary scales. However, green water lacks explicit consideration in the existing planetary boundaries framework that demarcates a global safe operating space for humanity. In this Perspective, we propose a green water planetary boundary and estimate its current status. The green water planetary boundary can be represented by the percentage of ice-free land area on which root-zone soil moisture deviates from Holocene variability for any month of the year. Provisional estimates of departures from Holocene-like conditions, alongside evidence of widespread deterioration in Earth system functioning, indicate that the green water planetary boundary is already transgressed. Moving forward, research needs to address and account for the role of root-zone soil moisture for Earth system resilience in view of ecohydrological, hydroclimatic and sociohydrological interactions.
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