PARTNER  PROFILES  &  LINKS

Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC, Pakistan) http://www.parc.gov.pk

PARC consists of four major divisions: Crop Sciences, Animal Sciences, Social Sciences, Natural Resources Management. PARC has 13 research stations throughout the country.

Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD, Islamabad, Pakistan) http://www.pakmet.com

PMD provides multiple weather-related services and is also the leading weather and climate research institution in Pakistan. PMD is currently in the process of setting up the National Center for Drought Monitoring and Early Warning. The Center will serve as a hub for collection and analysis of all drought-related data in the country, will prepare the weekly drought newsletters, containing information on drought indices, river flow, reservoir storage, etc, will extend the rainfall network and advise the GoP on drought -related maters. The research unit will be established as part of the Center.

The Project collaborates with the PMD in developing and testing appropriate drought indices and drought monitoring strategies. PMD also kindly provides and the climate data from meteorological stations in Baluchistan and Sindh Province for this Project.

Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI, Jodhpur, India) http://cazri.raj.nic.in/

Central Arid Zone Research Institute operates under Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi . It has 8 Divisions, located at the headquarters in Jodhpur and four Regional Research Stations in different agro-climatic zones. The Institute undertakes fundamental and applied researches that contributes to sustainable farming systems in the arid zone, acts as repository of information on the state of natural resources, desertification processes and its control and provides relevant training. Research focuses on natural resources appraisal and degradation assessment, conservation of plant biodiversity, crop improvement, integrated farming systems, artificial recharge of ground water, surface and subsurface hydrology, management of contaminated water, socio-economics etc.

In terms of the current project, CAZRI is conducting the assessment of the potential for water harvesting technologies to combat droughts in Rajasthan Unlike many case-specific studies, this project focuses on the entire State. It intends to develop scenarios of drought mitigation at different levels of acceptance and implementation of water harvesting in Rajasthan.

Institute of Development Studies (IDS, Jaipur, India) http://www.idsj.org/
(Natural Resources Management and Environment Thrust - NRM)

The IDS is supported by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) and the Government of Rajasthan (GoR). The Institute is a multi-disciplinary research organization with four major thrusts, including Natural Resource Management and Environment, Economic Policies and Strategies, Social Policies and Civil Society and Gender Studies. The Institute is specifically concerned with regional issues relating to Rajasthan. Water being the scarcest resource and critical to the survival and livelihood of the people of Rajasthan has been one of the intensive study areas in Natural Resource Management and Environment Thrust. The Institute is attempting to impact a water policy for water scarce regions of Rajasthan. Water issues are being dealt with from the supply, demand and management angles. Past and current projects of the Thrust include:  assessment of groundwater resources and their use in Rajasthan, water policy analysis at national and state levels, developing the State Atlas of Natural Resources and agriculture, community management of groundwater in rural areas, research in institutional reforms needed to implement friendly development interventions for ecologically sensitive people.

In terms of the current Project, the NRM of IDS will conduct the state-level analysis of drought policies and impacts in Rajasthan. The study attempts to explore the impacts of droughts on production, employment, wages, and farm incomes at the state level, review the state level institutional arrangements for managing droughts (laws, regulations, policies etc), and analyze politics of drought and link between droughts and development. The study explores how and to what extent relevant institutions could have helped to reduce the effect of droughts and or what role the existing institutions had already played to mitigate droughts. This study effectively looks at the institutional potential of drought mitigation.

Sewa Mandir (Udaipur, Rajasthan, India) http://www.sevamandir.org

Sewa Mandir is a non-governmental organization based in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. It has 28 field offices and the staff of about 250 with a large number of filed facilitators. Although particularly active in two districts of Rajasthan, Sewa Mandir maintains close links with many other NGOs in the state, spread out across the entire Rajasthan. One of the main activities of Sewa Mandir is the livelihood program, which focuses on natural resources management and use by rural communities. Other programs include capability development in rural areas and building village institutions. Sewa Mandir actively promotes rainfall harvesting structures in villages, but believes more in the integrated interventions to community resources management.

Within the terms of the current Project, Sewa Mandir is conducting a research which focuses on assessment of socio-economic impacts of droughts on communities and households and on identification and analysis of drought-coping strategies at household and community level in short and long term. Traditional and emerging coping strategies are being identified in different parts of the Rajasthan state and the use of these strategies in different droughts (e.g. mild or severe) will be explored. This project also intends to analyze whether the past interventions by the GoR and NGOs had positive or negative impact in selected villages and communities in terms of their ability to cope with the drought. It will also identify and analyze factors behind success/failure of these interventions, and synthesize key lessons learnt for designing future interventions. The research conducted by Sewa Mandir attempts to identify the constraints to adoption of successful drought proofing measures by rural communities.

Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) http://www.icar.org.in

ICAR has a special link on its web site for National Drought Management Plan providing information on rainfall deficit, crop conditions etc. ICAR, together with CAZRI conducts a study on drought declaration in India and is an apex organization for CAZRI.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) http://www.imd.ernet.in
 
IMD provides daily and weekly weather reports, progress of monsoons, long-term forecasts of monsoon, weather charts, rainfall maps, satellite images etc. IMD also provides the meteorological data for the study areas of Rajasthan and Gujarat in India.

Center for Water Resources Studies, College of Agriculture Tarbiat Modarres University, Tehran, Iran.

The Center conducts the research on multiple aspects of water resources management, decision support system development, hydro-meteorological data analyses, drought monitoring and management. The Center maintains its own drought research web page, which has in turn, a number of useful links. http://www.modares.ac.ir/en/webagr/drought/index.htm

In terms of the current Project, the Center for Water Resources Studies provides and processes the climatic data, which currently exist along the Iranian border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. These data are invaluable in this data-scarce region and will be used, amongst the others, to validate the results of remote sensing analysis in this area.

Institute For Social And Environmental Transition (ISET). Boulder, Colorado, USA and Katmandu, Nepal http://www.i-s-e-t.org

ISET is an international partnership for implementation, education and research on natural resources and the environment. One of its current research projects - Adaptive Strategies for Responding to Drought and Flood in South Asia (follow ISET link above & then click "Projects & Programs") - is complimentary to the current regional project on 'Drought Assessment in Southwest Asia'. The 'Adaptive Strategies' project is an attempt to reconcile differences in perceptions of and responses to extreme weather events in the context of climatic and social change. It is designed to document the concepts and opportunities for more effective approaches to cope with floods and droughts mitigation through an integrated set of studies in two drought prone locations in Rajasthan and Gujarat (India) and two flood affected areas in Nepal. The 'Adaptive Strategies Project' examines the nature of flood and drought related disasters and their links with longer-term water management issues, existing coping strategies followed by communities in drought and flood affected areas, physical options for meeting long-term sustainability objectives and options for mitigating floods and droughts.

Catholic Relief Services(CRS), Afghanistan http://www.catholicrelief.org/our_work/where_we_work/overseas/Asia/afghanistan/index.cfm