IWMI in India

The agricultural activities contribute to the largest share of water consumption in the arid and semi-arid basins. In this study, we demonstrate the application of Water Accounting Plus (WA+) for estimation of the green water consumption (ETGreen) and blue water consumption (ETBlue) for assessing the water productivity (WP) and land productivity (LP) to identify the bright-spots and hot-spots at the district administrative unit level for effectively managing the scarce water resources and sustaining food security in a highly non-resilient semi-arid basin of India. The WA+ framework uses satellite remote sensing datasets from different sources for this purpose and we used the data from 2003 to 2020. The long-term average of ETGreen and ETBlue in the Mahi basin is found to be 15.8 km3 /year and 12.32 km3 /year, respectively. The blue water index (BWI) and green water index (GWI) in the basin vary from 0.282 to 0.598 and 0.40–0.72. We found that the BWI is highest for the districts of Gujarat, whereas, the GWI is highest for the districts of Madhya Pradesh. The long-term average of the LP and WP for both the irrigated and rainfed cereals in the basin is found as 2287.71 kg/ha amp; 1713.62 kg/ha and 0.721 kg/ m3 amp; 0.483 kg/m3 , respectively from 2003 to 2020. The WP (rainfed) of all the districts of the Gujarat is comparatively lower (varying from 0.34 kg/m3 to 0.5 kg/m3 ) than the districts of the Madhya Pradesh (varying from 0.59 kg/m3 to 0.70 kg/m3 ) and the Rajasthan (varying from 0.48 kg/m3 to 0.73 kg/m3 ). Based on the results, we found that the Ratlam district of the Madhya Pradesh has both highest LP and WP (irrigated) as 2573.96 kg/ha and 2.14 kg/m3 , respectively among all the districts of the Mahi basin, and hence it is classified as the ‘Bright spot-district’. The Anand district is found to have the lowest WP and LP as 0.44 kg/m3 and 2467.51 kg/ha, respectively and hence it is classified as the ‘hot spot-district’. For rainfed cereals, we found that the Neemuch district of Madhya Pradesh has the highest WP and LP as 0.59 kg/m3 and 1948.13 kg /ha, respectively, and the Anand district with the lowest WP as 0.34 kg/m3 and LP of 1572.21 kg/ha, respectively. Therefore, we classified the Neemach district as the ‘Bright spot-district’ and the Anand district as the hot spot- district for rainfed cereals. These findings will help develop sustainable and actionable agricultural water management plans by the policymakers and stakeholders in the basin.

As groundwater levels steadily decline in India, authorities are concerned about reducing extraction for irrigation purposes without jeopardizing food security. Very low or zero prices for electricity and water in agriculture is partly responsible for overextraction, but charging higher prices is politically not feasible. In this study, we describe the results of a pilot scheme implemented in Punjab, India, where farmers who enrolled were allocated a monthly entitlement of electricity units and compensated for unused electricity. Eight hours of uninterrupted daytime electricity supply were also provided under the scheme instead of the usual mix of daytime and night-time supply. Analyzing data from a cross-sectional farm household survey and instrumenting for enrollment, we find that self-reported hours of irrigation for enrolled farmers were significantly lower than for non-enrolled ones, with no impact on rice yields. We also find a reduction in monthly electricity consumption at electricity-feeder level due to the pilot scheme using the synthetic control method. Our results suggest that the combination of daytime electricity provision and cash incentives for unused electricity has the potential to incentivize farmers to reduce electricity consumption and irrigation hours by at least 7.5% and up to 30% without impacting paddy yields.

The Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) in north-west (NW) India are facing a severe decline in ground water due to prevalent rice-based cropping systems. To combat this issue, conservation agriculture (CA) with an alternative crop/s, such as maize, is being promoted. Recently, surface drip fertigation has also been evaluated as a viable option to address low-nutrient use efficiency and water scarcity problems for cereals. While the individual benefits of CA and sub-surface drip (SSD) irrigation on water economy are well-established, information regarding their combined effect in cereal-based systems is lacking. Therefore, we conducted a two-year field experiment in maize, under an ongoing CA-based maize-wheat system, to evaluate the complementarity of CA with SSD irrigation through two technological interventions–– CA+ (residue retained CA + SSD), PCA+ (partial CA without residue + SSD) – at different N rates (0, 120 and 150 kg N ha-1) in comparison to traditional furrow irrigated (FI) CA and conventional tillage (CT) at 120 kg N ha-1. Our results showed that CA+ had the highest grain yield (8.2 t ha-1), followed by PCA+ (8.1 t ha-1). The grain yield under CA+ at 150 kg N ha-1 was 27% and 30% higher than CA and CT, respectively. Even at the same N level (120 kg N ha-1), CA+ outperformed CA and CT by 16% and 18%, respectively. The physiological performance of maize also revealed that CA+ based plots with 120 kg N ha-1 had 12% and 3% higher photosynthesis rate at knee-high and silking, respectively compared to FI-CA and CT. Overall, compared to the FI-CA and CT, SSD-based CA+ and PCA+ saved 54% irrigation water and increased water productivity (WP) by more than twice. Similarly, a greater number of split N application through fertigation in PCA+ and CA+ increased agronomic nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and recover efficiency by 8–19% and 14–25%, respectively. Net returns from PCA+ and CA+ at 150 kg N ha-1 were significantly higher by US$ 491 and 456, respectively than the FI-CA and CT treatments. Therefore, CA coupled with SSD provided tangible benefits in terms of yield, irrigation water saving, WP, NUE and profitability. Efforts should be directed towards increasing farmers’ awareness of the benefits of such promising technology for the cultivating food grains and commercial crops such as maize. Concurrently, government support and strict policies are required to enhance the system adaptability.

Digital innovations and interventions can potentially revolutionize agri-food systems, especially in coping with climate challenges. On a similar note, digital research tools and methods are increasingly popular for the efficient collection and analysis of real-time, large-scale data. It is claimed that these methods can also minimize subjective biases that are prevalent in traditional qualitative research. However, given the digital divide, especially affecting women and marginalized communities, these innovations could potentially introduce further disparities. To assess these contradictions, we piloted SenseMaker, a digital ethnography tool designed to capture individual, embodied experiences, biases, and perceptions to map vulnerabilities and resilience to climate impacts in the Gaya District in Bihar. Our research shows that this digital tool allows for a systematic co-design of the research framework, allows for the collection of large volumes of data in a relatively short time, and a co-analysis of the research data by the researchers and the researched. This process allowed us to map and capture the complexities of intersectional inequalities in relation to climate change vulnerability. However, we also noted that the application of the tool is influenced by the prior exposure to technology (digital devices) of both the enumerators and researched groups and requires significant resources when implemented in contexts where there is a need to translate the data from local dialects and languages to more dominant languages (English). Most importantly, perceptions, positionalities, and biases of researchers can significantly impact the design of the tool’s signification framework, reiterating the fact that researcher bias persists regardless of technological innovations in research methodology.

Conservation of forest ecosystem is fundamental for economic-ecological sustainability. Indian Sundarbans provide several ecosystem services, which needs sustainable exploitation since forest dwellers are heavily dependent on the forest. In our study, we attempt to estimate the option value of the forest dwellers through a non-market based valuation technique. Using contingent valuation, we seek to estimate the contribution forest fringe dwellers are ready to provide for restoration and conservation of the ecosystem services. Assuming a random utility framework, mean willingness to pay is estimated from the forest dwellers’ responses to the Dichotomous Choice bidding as well as open-ended bidding question using socio-economic variables which determine the value towards forest ecosystem services. The results indicate that forest dwellers have a positive option value and hence are willing to forgo present extraction of forest resources for future use. This value the forest dwellers associate with non-use ecosystem services indicates their willingness to participate in forest conservation. The study therefore concludes that institutions like Joint Forest Management should be promoted for efficient management of the mangrove in providing livelihood and ecosystem services.

Rice cultivation in the Western Indo-Gangetic plains of India is often blamed for higher energy use. Thus, a bootstrapped meta-frontier approach with a truncated regression approach was used on a database of 3832 rice farms from the input-intensive rice production tracts of western Indo-Gangetic Plains for sustainable energy-use assessment. Farms were classified based on efficiency scores to screen the inefficient practices and farms in Indo-Gangetic Plains. The district-specific technical-efficiency scores ranged between 0.68 and 0.99, with a mean of 0.86–0.90, suggesting average improvement in energy-use efficiency by 10–14% within the district. The mean meta-frontier technical-efficiency score ranged between 0.60 and 0.81. On average, the energy-use-efficient farms had 42% or higher energy-use efficiency in the districts of Ambala, Fatehgarh Sahib, and Karnal. In contrast, in other districts, the efficient farms had 5-19% higher energy-use efficiency. There is evidence of a higher number of tillage, irrigation, and fertilizer application among the inefficient farmers, specific to some districts. The efficient as well as inefficient farmers in Kapurthala and Ludhiana spend similar energy in tillage, whereas, the energy output from both efficient and inefficient farms are similar in Kurukshetra. Thus, there is a need of differential attention specific to district and practices. The evidence provided in this study can help to identify pathways toward sustainable energy use for future rice production in other ecologies too. Similar type of analysis can be carried out for other parameters like profitability and carbon footprint to explore where farmers are spending extra monetary and carbon inputs, and not getting additional yield benefits.

A study was conducted to determine the combined effects of three tillage practices and four maize (Zea mays L.)- based cropping systems on physical, saturated, and near-saturated hydraulic properties in a sandy loam soil of North-Western India. Split-plot experimental design was adopted with tillage [conventional tillage (CT), zero tillage (ZT), and permanent raised bed (PB)] as the main plot treatments and intensified crop rotations [Maize (Zea mays L.)-Wheat (Triticum aestivum)-Greengram (Vigna radiata L.) (MWGg), Maize-Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.)-Sesbania (Sesbania aculeata) (MCpSb), Maize-Mustard (Brassica juncea) -Greengram (MMuGg) and MaizeMaize-Sesbania (MMSb)] as subplot treatments. The saturated and near-saturated soil hydraulic conductivity were derived from steady-state infiltration rates measured using a hood infiltrometer on the surface soil at 0, - 1, and - 3 cm pressure heads. The long-term (10 years) study revealed that the bulk density (BD) of the soil under conservation agriculture (CA) practices (PB and ZT) was significantly (P = 0.05) lower than that in CT practices. The soil BD in the MCpSb cropping system was measured to be the lowest (1.24 g cm- 3 ) among all the cropping systems. The soil aggregate mean weight diameter (MWD) under PB and ZT was determined to be 31% and 27% higher than in the CT treatments. In tillage × cropping systems interactions, the highest MWD was observed in the PB×MWGg. The saturated and near-saturated hydraulic conductivity (K(h)) were estimated to have higher values in CA practices (PB and ZT) than in the CT treatments. In the case of cropping systems, the soil’s mean field saturated hydraulic conductivity was estimated to be significantly (P lt; 0.05) higher under the MWGg, MCpSb, and MMuGg than the MMSb. The present study indicates that conservation agriculture-based crop management with diversified maize-based rotation (MCpSb, MWGg, and MMuGg) could be promising alternatives to conventional tillage practices (CT). Among the cropping system choices, MWGg was more effective in improving the soil’s hydro-physical properties in the study area.

Springs are the most important source of water for the people in the mid-hills of the Himalaya. Emerging evidence shows that they are increasingly drying up, causing numerous hardships for people, with those impacts being felt more acutely by women and members of vulnerable communities like lower castes (Dalits). Climate change, land-use and land cover changes, including haphazard infrastructure (hydropower, road construction), and other socio-economic changes such as urbanization and tourism are the leading causes of the drying up of springs. In the region in general, and India in particular, the last decade and a half have seen increased initiatives for spring revival. In this chapter, we document the genesis of some of these spring revival initiatives in India and note how all stakeholders—communities, civil societies and governments have come to support spring revival initiatives. We also note that the scientific community has not yet caught up with the action on the ground, and we still lack rigorous documentation of the short and long-term effectiveness of spring revival initiatives. We recommend integrating scientific knowledge with social analysis on the governance aspects for improving spring recharge, better management and postulating potential responses of natural and human systems against future climate change impacts in the Himalaya.

Over the last two decades, several data sets have been developed to assess flood risk at the global scale. In recent years, some of these data sets have become detailed enough to be informative at national scales. The use of these data sets nationally could have enormous benefits in areas lacking existing flood risk information and allow better flood management decisions and disaster response. In this study, we evaluate the usefulness of global data for assessing flood risk in five countries: Colombia, England, Ethiopia, India, and Malaysia. National flood risk assessments are carried out for each of the five countries using six data sets of global flood hazard, seven data sets of global population, and three different methods for calculating vulnerability. We also conduct interviews with key water experts in each country to explore what capacity there is to use these global data sets nationally. We find that the data sets differ substantially at the national level, and this is reflected in the national flood risk estimates. While some global data sets could be of significant value for national flood risk management, others are either not detailed enough, or too outdated to be relevant at this scale. For the relevant global data sets to be used most effectively for national flood risk management, a country needs a functioning, institutional framework with capability to support their use and implementation.

Groundwater depletion in India is a result of water, energy, and food policies that have given rise to a nexus where growth in agriculture has been supported by unsustainable trends in water and energy use. This nexus emanates from India’s policy of providing affordable calories to its large population. This requires that input prices are kept low, leading to perverse incentives that encourage groundwater overexploitation. The paper argues that solutions to India’s groundwater problems need to be embedded within the current context of its water-energy-food nexus. Examples are provided of changes underway in some water-energy-food policies that may halt further groundwater depletion.

This chapter reviews and analyzes the Indian and Sri Lankan projects funded by the Green Climate Fund, emphasizing the Sri Lankan water projects. The GCFapos;s Sri Lanka projects focuses on water resources and security in two regions: The Northeastern village irrigation with village tanks project and the Knuckles Mountain Range water project. We provide an initial analysis of these projects concerning several indicators: efficient public intervention, water and agricultural impacts, paddy yield impacts, and socio-political institutions.

Indus and Ganga Basins (IGB), which spread over 220 million ha and with over one billion population, grapples with multiple risks. Climate change will exacerbate the water-related recurrent disasters of floods and droughts. Variability and extreme events of rainfall and temperature are increasing. Monsoon rains in four months from June to September bring 80% of the total rainfall. Irrigation is critical, especially for dry-season agriculture and for livelihoods and food security. Groundwater depletion, water quality, and environmental issues reached critical points threatening sustainable agriculture in many locations. This paper focuses on innovative water-related adaptation strategies being pilot tested and implemented to reduce the risks and enhance productivity and resilience in the agriculture sector in the Basins.

The terrestrial biosphere plays an active role in governing the climate system by regulating carbon exchange between the land and the atmosphere. Analysis of vegetation biophysical parameters and gross primary production (GPP) makes it convenient to monitor vegetationapos;s health. A light use efficiency (LUE) model was employed to estimate daily GPP from satellite-driven data and environmental factors. The LUE model is driven by four major variables, namely normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), air temperature, and moisture for which both satellite-based and ERA5-Land data were applied. In this study, the vegetation health of Dibru Saikhowa National Park (DSNP) in Assam has been analyzed through vegetation biophysical and biochemical parameters (i.e., NDVI, EVI, LAI, and chlorophyll content) using Sentinel-2 data. Leaf area index (LAI) varied between 1 and 5.2, with healthy forests depicted LAI more than 2.5. Daily GPP was estimated for January (winter) and August (monsoon) 2019 for tropical evergreen and deciduous forest types. A comparative analysis of GPP for two seasons has been performed. In January, GPP was found to be 3.6 gC m-2 day-1, while in August, GPP was 5 gC m-2 day-1. The outcome of this study may be constructive to forest planners to manage the National Park so that net carbon sink may be attained in DSNP.

Kolkata being a metropolitan city in India has its main municipal solid waste dumpsite situated at Dhapa just adjacent to the East Kolkata Wetlands (Ramsar site). The current prevalent situation at Dhapa is open dumping leading to various contaminations and hazards putting forth the need to look for alternative sites where the landfiilling operation can be shifted to using scientific methods. A user interface (UI)–based analytical hierarchy process (AHP) tool has been developed within the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud platform to find out the alternative dumping sites using geospatial layers. AHP function is not available as a native algorithm or developed by any researcher in GEE. The tool has three major functionalities, of which the first one handles the UI elements. The AHP procedure is within another function, and the last function integrates the AHP coefficients to the layers generating the final suitability layer. Users can also upload comparison matrix as GEE asset in the form of CSV file which gets automatically integrated into the AHP to calculate the coefficients and consistency ratio to generate the spatial suitability layers. This approach showcases a generalized AHP function within the GEE environment, which has been done for the first time. The tool is designed in the cloud platform which is dynamic, robust and suitable for use in various AHP-based suitability analysis in environmental monitoring and assessment.

Study region: The study region is the Kamadhiya catchment (1150 km2 ), located in the Saurashtra region of the western state of Gujarat, India. The region has seen intensive development of check dams (CDs) for groundwater recharge with an estimated 27,000 CDs constructed up until 2018. Study focus: The impact of CDs on groundwater storage, food production and resilience are assessed for Kamadhiya catchment by estimating and comparing changes, across periods of low and high CD development, in potential recharge from CDs, rainfall trends, and irrigation demand. The analysis is carried out for the period from 1983 to 2015. New hydrological insights for the region: Groundwater storage gains observed following CD development can partly be attributed to an increase in high rainfall years after several drought years. Groundwater demand for irrigation has increased substantially, outweighing increase in groundwater recharge from CDs. This deficit in supply relative to demand is greatest in dry years, and when considered together with the low inter-annual carry-over storage of the region’s hardrock aquifers, means that CDs capacity to enhance groundwater storage and mitigate the negative impacts of drought remains limited. Findings suggest that a standalone focus on MAR, unless complemented by greater emphasis on management of water demand and groundwater resources more broadly, may not be sufficient to achieve the long-term goals of sustainable groundwater and concurrently expanding agricultural crop production.

River systems originating from the Upper Indus Basin (UIB) are dominated by runoff from snow and glacier melt and summer monsoonal rainfall. These water resources are highly stressed as huge populations of people living in this region depend on them, including for agriculture, domestic use, and energy production. Projections suggest that the UIB region will be affected by considerable (yet poorly quantified) changes to the seasonality and composition of runoff in the future, which are likely to have considerable impacts on these supplies. Given how directly and indirectly communities and ecosystems are dependent on these resources and the growing pressure on them due to ever-increasing demands, the impacts of climate change pose considerable adaptation challenges. The strong linkages between hydroclimate, cryosphere, water resources, and human activities within the UIB suggest that a multi- and inter-disciplinary research approach integrating the social and natural/environmental sciences is critical for successful adaptation to ongoing and future hydrological and climate change. Here we use a horizon scanning technique to identify the Top 100 questions related to the most pressing knowledge gaps and research priorities in social and natural sciences on climate change and water in the UIB. These questions are on the margins of current thinking and investigation and are clustered into 14 themes, covering three overarching topics of “governance, policy, and sustainable solutions”, “socioeconomic processes and livelihoods”, and “integrated Earth System processes”. Raising awareness of these cutting-edge knowledge gaps and opportunities will hopefully encourage researchers, funding bodies, practitioners, and policy makers to address them.

We evaluate a large-scale model of agricultural advisory services, known as Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) or Farm Science Centers, introduced by the Government of India to facilitate smallholder adoption of new agricultural technologies. The study first evaluates the impact of frontline demonstrations and capacity-building programs conducted by KVKs and aimed at promoting a new wheat variety (HD2967); it then examines gains in the speed of diffusion at the district level. The study’s second objective is to estimate the spillover effects of KVKs through social networks. The study identifies network beneficiaries based on a ‘‘networks within sample” approach. The study uses a matched difference-indifferences approach and sample of 1496 wheat farmers in Uttar Pradesh, India. The finding shows that frontline demonstrations and capacity-building programs positively impact the adoption of HD-2967. The magnitude of the impacts is larger for KVK beneficiaries, but substantial gains also arise for network beneficiaries. The study underscores the importance of frequently conducting interventions to influence adoption on aggregate at the district level. From a policy perspective, the study offers new insights for strengthening outreach and extension services designed to facilitate the transfer of agricultural knowledge and information, emphasizing frontline demonstrations, capacity-building programs, and spillovers in extending the scope of KVKs.

This study examines the role of caste-based affiliations in the smallholders’ social network interactions for adoption choices. In particular, whether lower-caste, namely Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes, farmers rely more on social networks for information than their counterparts. We further explore whether social network effects are more pronounced when farmers interact within their caste than otherwise. Finally, the study tests whether the effects (intra-caste and inter-caste) vary by caste—SC/ST versus non-SC/ST farmers. The study uses a survey of 478 mustard farmers in Rajasthan, India. Econometric concerns related to unobserved heterogeneity are addressed by employing specifications with village fixed effects and a series of robustness tests. Simultaneity concerns are addressed by analyzing the social network effects in a dynamic adoption framework. Results show that the adoption choices regarding hybrid mustard seeds are more pronounced for the lower-caste farmers than for their counterparts. Findings reveal that social network effects are significant in intra-caste but not in the case of inter-caste. Finally, the result shows that the likelihood of accepting advice in technology adoption is higher when SC/ST farmers interact with non-SC/ST network members than when non-SC/ST farmers interact with SC/ ST network members.

Multistakeholder platforms (MSPs) are the subject of increasing attention and investment in the domain of collaborative natural resource governance, yet evidence-based guidance is slim on policy and investment priorities to leverage the MSP approach. We provide a comparative analysis of eight landscape-level MSPs spanning seven countries (Peru, Brazil, India, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and a cross-border case from Kenya and Somalia), representing a diversity of resource systems covering forests, rangelands, and multiuse agricultural landscapes. Applying an adapted social-ecological systems framework, our synthesis identifies the influence of these MSPs on patterns of stakeholder interaction and draws implications for the design and organization of MSPs that are both appropriate and effective. From the cases, we distill lessons addressing: (1) how to design an MSP in relation to the governance context, including the fit between institutional and ecological dimensions of the system and with attention to cross-scale linkages; (2) how to implement inclusive processes that address power inequities, including through capacity building and procedural rules; and (3) how to support adaptive learning to expand the MSP’s influence over time, including monitoring outcomes, adapting the scope of stakeholder engagement, and investing in MSP durability.

In India, artificial recharge (AR) of aquifers is considered a primary supply-side measure to combat the widespread over-exploitation of groundwater. As a major collateral benefit of rainwater harvesting (RWH) is aquifer rejuvenation, both rainwater harvesting and AR are planned and executed as a set of coherent interventions. The Central and state governments have brought in several schemes involving AR and RWH. Moreover, a number of researches are being conducted on how to select the sites for structure construction, the types of structure and their designs depending upon the local hydrogeology, groundwater flow regime, terrain condition and demand of water, and how they impact on resource rejuvenation and improvement in water quality. Various researches are also available on how such endeavors are translating into socio-economic benefits. The paper reviews the researches that have been done in India on these issues and related government policies and schemes under execution. The critical issues like source water availability for recharge, upstream-downstream conflicts, and the rising awareness of different demand-side interventions for sustainable management of groundwater resources have also been discussed.

Groundwater for Sustainable Livelihoods and Equitable Growth explores how groundwater, often invisibly, improves peoples’ lives and livelihoods. This unique collection of 19 studies captures experiences of groundwater making a difference in 16 countries in Africa, South America and Asia. Such studies are rarely documented and this book provides a rich new collection of interdisciplinary analysis. The book is published in colour and includes many original diagrams and photographs. Spring water, wells or boreholes have provided safe drinking water and reliable water for irrigation or industry for millennia. However, the hidden nature of groundwater often means that it’s important role both historically and in the present is overlooked. This collection helps fill this knowledge gap, providing a diverse set of new studies encompassing different perspectives and geographies. Different interdisciplinary methodologies are described that can help understand linkages between groundwater, livelihoods and growth, and how these links can be threatened by over-use, contamination, and ignorance. Written for a worldwide audience of practitioners, academics and students with backgrounds in geology, engineering or environmental sciences; Groundwater for Sustainable Livelihoods and Equitable Growth is essential reading for those involved in groundwater and international development.

West Bengal, India’s largest rice-producing state, has over seven million small and marginal farmers. The rice economy of the region especially that of summer (Boro) paddy is backed by groundwater – an abundant resource in most parts of this State. Despite the rich and shallow aquifers, most of the farmers do not have access to a private source of irrigation and there is a huge dependence on informal irrigation services market where owners of electric tubewells sell irrigation to neighboring farms. Unlike other states of India, West Bengal charges farmers near-commercial metered tariff for the power used to run electric submersible pumps, creating oligopolistic irrigation markets and subsequently leading to exorbitant irrigation costs for small and marginal farmers. This is making paddy farming unviable for many irrigation buyers who are quitting paddy farming altogether. In this chapter, we explore an alternate energy pricing regime with flat-cum-metered electricity tariff structure, which was piloted in Manoharpur village of West Bengal. The pilot throws light into the dynamics of the market players, price setting mechanisms, motivations of pump owners, and provides evidence in support of a flat-cum-seasonally metered tariff structure that has the potential to uplift gains from paddy farming in the State. Without a change in the energy policy of the State, the trend of small farmers leaving agriculture is likely to continue and their livelihoods and food security will continue to be at risk.

Kachchh, the westernmost district of India is historically known for its unique landscape, distinct traditions and arid climate. For a long time, the arid region of Kachchh had limited economic growth and limited habitation due to water scarcity caused by erratic rainfall. In 2001, the seismically active region of Kachchh experienced a large earthquake measuring 7.7 Mw but, the region has shown considerable development post-disaster. Growth strategies for agriculture, manufacturing and tourism implemented by the government and supported by industries and other agencies have not only made the region a dynamic economic hub in the state of Gujarat, but also has highlighted the long-neglected region on the world map. Due to the lack of perennial surface water availability and limited rainfall, the development has been fuelled by exploiting the groundwater resources to a great extent. The objective of this chapter is to highlight groundwater use in Kachchh, known as one of the most arid regions of India with low rainfall and high variability. Groundwater is playing a vital role in meeting the demand for all societal usage, irrigation, domestic requirements and industries. The authors highlight how the region is blessed with a suitable geological formation, forming a potential freshwater aquifer system which has served society for centuries even with a grossly adequate recharge. They highlight the importance of looking into the sustainable use of groundwater, a priceless natural resource of the region.

We proposed a modification of the existing approach for mapping active paddy rice fields in monsoon-dominated areas. In the existing PPPM approach, LSWI higher than EVI at the transplantation stage enables the identification of rice fields. However, it fails to recognize the fields submerged later due to monsoon floods. In the proposed approach (IPPPM), the submerged fields, at the maximum greenness time, were excluded for better estimation. Sentinel–2A/2B time-series images were used for the year 2018 to map paddy rice over the Lower Gangetic Plain (LGP) using Google earth engine (GEE). The overall accuracy (OA) obtained from IPPPM was 85%. Further comparison with the statistical data reveals the IPPPM underestimates (slope (b1) ¼ 0.77) the total reported paddy rice area, though R2 remains close to 0.9. The findings provide a basis for near real-time mapping of active paddy rice areas for addressing the issues of production and food security.

The vast majority of farmers in the drylands are resource-poor smallholders, whose livelihoods depend heavily on their farming systems. Therefore, increasing the resilience of these smallholders is vital for their prosperity. This study quantified household resilience and identified livelihoods and their influence on resilience in the semiarid tropics of India by analysing 684 households. A resilience capacity index was devised based on the composition of household food and non-food expenditure, cash savings, and food and feed reserves. The index ranged from 8.4 reflecting highly resilient households with access to irrigation characteristics, to -3.7 for households with highly limited resilience and low household assets. The livelihoods were identified through multivariate analysis on selected socioeconomic and biophysical variables; households were heterogeneous in their livelihoods. Irrigated livestock and rainfed marginal types had the highest and lowest resilience capacity index with the mean score of 0.69 and -1.07, respectively. Finally, we quantified the influence of livelihood strategies on household resilience. Household resilience was strengthened by the possession of livestock, crop diversification and access to irrigation. Low resilience is predominantly caused by low household assets. The resilience capacity index and derived livelihood strategies helps to understand the complexity of household resilience, and will aid in targeting technology interventions for development.

Groundwater is a significant resource that supports almost one-fifth population globally, but has been is diminishing at an alarming rate in recent years. To delve into this objective more thoroughly, we calculated interannual (2002–2020) GWS (per grid) distribution using GRACE amp; GRACE-FO (CSR-M, JPL-M and SH) Level 3 RL06 datasets in seven Indian river basins and found comparatively higher negative trends (-20.10 1.81 to -8.60 1.52 mm/yr) in Basin 1–4 than in Basin 5–7 (-7.11 0.64 to -0.76 0.47 mm/yr). After comparing the Groundwater Storage (GWS) results with the CHIRPS (Climate Hazards Group Infrared Precipitation with Stations) derived SPI (Standardized Precipitation Index) drought index, we found that GWS exhausts analogously in the same period (2005–2020) when SPI values show improvement (~ 1.89–2), indicating towards wet condition. Subsequently, the GWSA time series is decomposed using the STL (Seasonal Trend Decomposition) (LOESS Regression) approach to monitor long-term groundwater fluctuation. The long term GWS rate (mm/yr) derived from three GRACE amp; GRACE-FO solutions vary from -20.3 5.52 to -13.19 3.28 and the GWS mass rate (km3 /yr) lie in range of -15.17 4.18 to -1.67 0.49 for basins 1–3. Simultaneously, in basin 4–7 the GWS rate observed is -8.56 8.03 to -0.58 7.04 mm/yr, and the GWS mass rate differs by -1.71 0.64 to -0.26 3.19 km3 /yr. The deseasonalized GWS estimation (2002–2020) states that Himalayan River basins 1,2,3 exhibit high GWS mass loss (-260 to -35.12 km3 ), with Basin 2 being the highest (-260 km3 ). Whereas the Peninsular River basin 4,6,7 gives moderate mass loss value from -26.72 to -23.58 km3 . And in River basin 5, the GWS mass loss observed is the lowest, with a value of -8 km3 . Accordingly, GPS (Global Positioning System) and SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) data are considered to examine the land deformation as an effect due to GWS mass loss. The GPS data acquired from two IGS stations, IISC Bengaluru and LCK3 Lucknow, negatively correlates with GWS change, and the values are ~ -0.90 to ~-0.21 and ~-0.7 to -0.4, respectively. Consequently, correlation between GWS mass rate (km3 /yr) and the SAR (Sentinel-1A, SBAS) data procured from Chandigarh, Delhi, Mehsana, Lucknow, Kolkata and Bengaluru shows ~ 72 – 48% positively correlated area (PCA). The vertical velocity ranges within ~ -94 to -25 mm/yr estimated from PCA. There is an increase in population (estimated 2008–2014) in Basin 1 amp; 2. Likewise, the correlation coefficient ( ) between GWS change and the irrigational area is positive in all seven basins indicating significant depletion in GWS due to an uncalled hike in population or irrigational land use. Similarly, the positive linear regression (R 2 ) in Basins 1–3 also indicates high depletion in GWS. But basins 4–7 observe negative linear regression even after increasing population, which implies a control on the irrigational land use, unable to determine the GWS change at local scale a

Climate-related hazards can lead to agricultural losses and affect local and wider food supply via food trade. This study estimates the potential for adverse effects of climate hazards on food supply across Indian States and Union Territories (hereafter ‘states’) by quantifying climate hazard risks. Risks were estimated using the most recent data available on hazard presence, vulnerability, and volume of per capita food supply that is exposed to hazards. Historical (2000–2020) climatological and geological data sourced from meteorological stations and satellite imagery were used to estimate the state-level presence of eight climate-related hazards (droughts, forest fires, floods, extreme rainfall, landslides, cyclones, extreme temperatures, sea level rise). For each state and hazard type, we distinguished between risk to food supply produced in the state and the risk to food supply imported from other states. The source of food supply was estimated from a supply and demand balance model for 30 major food items that uses government data from 2011–12. We found that climate hazard risks to food supply vary across states and by hazard type. The largest climate hazard risks to state food supply are in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Assam, where the majority of risk is to locally produced supply. Food supply in each state is at risk to all eight climate hazards via food imports from other Indian states. For 14 states, the climate hazard risk is greater for imported food supply than for locally produced supply. Just five states contribute to more than half of the climate hazard risk in interstate food trade. The findings indicate that climate-related hazards in Indian states could have potentially adverse effects on national food supply, affecting both local production and interstate trade. For policy-makers, these climate hazard risks identify potential priorities for enhancing food system resilience to mitigate impacts on local and national food security.

The projected implications of climate change for water and agriculture to meet diverse and competitive water demands requires smart water management solutions. Science- and evidence-based, agricultural water management (AWM) can significantly contribute to reduce unsustainable water use and help enhance water resilience and adaptation to climate change. This paper presents a brief overview of potential AWM practices focusing on enhancing water resilience, increasing yields, and wherever possible, reducing emissions. This is achieved via increased land and water use efficiency, water and energy savings, and improved water productivity with considerable scope to improve agricultural resilience. In this context, the prioritization of a location-specific portfolio of smart AWM practices to make the right investment decisions is very important. We present two distinct and complementary approaches to prioritize AWM practices in this paper: one follows stakeholder analysis to build a prioritized portfolio of climate-smart AWM practices and the other employs a simple water balance-based approach to prioritize interventions. The way forward in mainstreaming and scaling out context-specific climate-smart AWM interventions is also discussed with a focus on capacity building, water management extension services, and the mobilization of resources through the convergence of institutions and co-financing from relevant development schemes.

Agricultural waste represents untapped resources that can be used to produce large value added products with many potential industrial applications. On-farm food waste comprises of harvest and post-harvest waste amounting to 1.2 billion tons per annum and measures up to USD 370 million. Production of food products and other outputs (like biofuel and compost) help in reduction of on-farm food waste and provide livelihood opportunities for the rural households. This reports highlights some innovative approaches across four countries which lead to reduction to food waste. The report cover 6 cases located in Burkina Faso, India, Kenya and Vietnam. The two business models identified in Ouagadougou are – (i) Waka group, that repurpose mango residues in to sweet and bio-vinyl vinegar called MISSIM vinegar, and (ii) SOFAB-SA utilizes oilseeds (such as peanuts, cotton, and soybeans) with blue cheese bran or corn, salt, or any other micro-ingredient to produce feed for livestock. From India, two such case studies are included – (i) Sai Shubhada agro industries is located in Ahmednagar, (Maharashtra, India), and converts bagasse, [a pulpy and fibrous residue of the sugarcane processing] into organic jiggery, and (ii) Arogyasangini Oil Mill, Mill has embarked on the mission to reintroduce oil extracted from the safflower seeds. Nadanya Greens located in Mbale, (Vihiga, Kenya) is exploring the use of farm waste from livestock to produce feeds for fish reared through three fish ponds. Xuan Tien Agricultural Cooperative, located at Yen Chau (Son La province, Vietnam), converts mango which is otherwise wasted post-harvest.

To tackle overexploitation of resources, pollution and related health issues, there has been an increase in policies, laws, and programmes that emphasize the importance of treatment, recycling, and reuse over the years. Various attempts have been made at various scales for resources recovery and reuse (RRR) interventions with varying degrees of completion and success. With limitations of the public sector, engagement of the private parties is believed to enhance circular economic approaches in future. This report is an attempt to assess the existing institutional, policy, regulatory and financial environment in which the RRR businesses operate in India. It begins with a brief introduction of India’s take and position in terms of sustainability followed by an overview of the regulatory environment. The regulatory environment covers some of the important acts and rules concerning wastewater, energy and nutrients. The policies and programme section talks about some of the major policies that are being run by the central government in the country. The subsequent section talks about the key institutions involved in the national level for the major sectors being covered in the report. This discussion is followed by description of the financial environment. The section describes the major government-run financial assistance and subsidies in the RRR domain. It also talks about the various monetary incentives offered by the government for the promotion of MSMEs in the country along with their general access to debt. The report also lists some of the key drivers that are involved in the RRR sectors differentiated by various parameters such as policy, regulatory and financials and others, followed by a conclusion.

Agricultural waste represents untapped resources that can be used to produce large value added products with many potential industrial applications. The use of agricultural wastes as raw materials for various industrial applications can help to reduce production cost and contribute to environmental conservation. The business cases described in this report highlight innovative approaches to convert the growing amount of agricultural waste into eco-efficient and bio-based products which are essential components of Nature-based solutions.

The diverse political influences and agrarian histories in Odisha have played a major role in determining the heterogenous regional contexts of agricultural development in the region. Several important political-economic developments like land tenure systems, feudal and semi-feudal structures, and their alliance with colonial extraction of revenue and taxation regimes historically have determined the agrarian pathways manifested in present inequalities in access to land, resources, and capital. There is a historical path dependence in agrarian systems, agrarian relations and the policies that aim to bring about changes. Thus “solutions” to a sustainable and resilient agrifood system needs to be contextualized within the historical and socio-political context. This research brief discusses the major drivers of food production and food security in Odisha charting the evolution of agrifood systems in the state. It traces the major political, economic, and social developments in Odisha that have taken place since 1850 that have determined the agrarian relations and agrifood outcomes for the region. It also discusses the major climatic events, particularly droughts and floods, that have influenced food production and livelihoods of rural communities. It brings out the temporal continuities and discontinuities in agrarian relations and technological transformations in agriculture.

As a part of the Transforming Agrifood Systems in South Asia (TAFSSA) initiative’s holistic food systems approach, IWMI led a study tracing the historical evolution of food systems in the state of Odisha, India. The expert consultation aimed to solicit views on framing and situating the historical study within the current food systems-related discussions. The study is conducted by Dr. Anindita Sarkar, Delhi University. Stakeholders offered substantial feedback on increasing the geographical and community scope of the study, important timelines to include, and relevant issues of the local agrifood system relevant for the region.

The century old irrigation tanks mostly found in south India account for about 1/3 of rice irrigated areas and largely benefit the small and marginal farmers. The current performance of these tanks is below the 50 percent level. Major factors contributing to their declining performance are: erratic rainfall pattern and reduced inflows (hydrology side); poor management of the tanks (tank side); ineffective water control amp; poor groundwater development (farmers’ side). Given the future impacts of climate change on water resources, sustaining tank irrigation is considered important. Evidence shows that developing an interface between tank ecosystems and wells is expected to augment water supplies, improve tank management and boost tank irrigation. This paper outlines a five-pronged strategy to achieve this: a) partial rehabilitation (partial desilting); b) full scale tank rehabilitation; c) converting tanks into percolation ponds; d) converting non-system tanks into system tanks; e) full scale groundwater development (tapping the full groundwater potential). Financial viability of the strategy also varies according to the scale and size of the investments and the expected benefits. There is an important need for policy reforms converging ongoing as well as proposed programs (by national and international funding agencies) on tank rehabilitation; these can be planned in a phased manner by prioritizing the investment scenarios.

This chapter examines the effects of such power sector reforms on the functioning of groundwater markets at the local level by comparing the cases of Gujarat and West Bengal. In Gujarat, an innovative power sector reform program (called Jotigram Yojona) was launched. The West Bengal state government, on the contrary, introduced a metering system to agriculture in place of the flat tariff while abolishing the electric tube well permit system. Consequently, the groundwater markets shrunk and/or the water charges paid by less resourceful farmers to the well owners increased in both states. The results imply that the power sector reforms, although they contributed to the reduction of the nexus problem, produced severe ill effects upon the farmers placed in weaker market positions.

This research report presents the first comprehensive framework of business models in terms of developing, marketing and scaling Index-based flood insurance (IBFI). The report evaluated ten case studies on agricultural insurance schemes (macro, meso and micro levels), globally, to develop public-private partnership business models for creating value (product development) and capturing value (product marketing). This report highlights four broad groups of interrelated factors that influence the uptake and scaling of agricultural insurance: (i) behavioral factors that influence farmers’ enthusiasm to invest in insurance; (ii) financial factors that stipulate governments’ willingness to provide financial support; (iii) legal and regulatory factors, which set ground rules for fair business and govern their adherence by stakeholders; and (iv) facilitating factors, including product design and development, business models, research and development, data availability, and awareness creation, which help ensure an efficient supply of insurance services. In summary, the report highlights the need for designing innovative IBFI and its potential benefits for uptake, and efforts for implementing IBFI as a potential risk transfer tool for comprehensive climate risk management among small-scale and marginal farmers.

In spite of being water surplus, the 600+ million population of the large Ganges basin spread over 1.09 m km2 in South Asia is water insecure, poor, and highly exposed to water-induced stresses of floods and droughts. The contribution from the glaciers to the streamflow is ~70% in the Himalayan catchments though spatially distributed quantification is unavailable. An application of the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) model with a sub-routine for snow and glaciers melt processes in the basin was set up. The model also examined the possible impacts of an increase in temperature of +1, +2 or +3C over 20 yrs of the simulation period. The impact on stream flows was high in the upstream (+8 to +26% at Tehri Dam) and moderate in downstream (+1 to +4% at Farakka). These increases shall create flood events more frequently or of higher magnitude in the mountains and Upper Ganga flood plains. To moderate the climate-change induced impacts of floods and improve water security during the non-monsoon season the novel concepts of Underground Taming of Floods for Irrigation (UTFI) and Cranking up the Ganges Water Machine for Ecosystem Services (GAMES) were developed, and pilot tested in the Ramganga sub-basin. Analysis showed that there is an assured possibility of reducing the floods and enhancing sub-surface storage in the identified basins to the level of 45 Bm3. The demonstrated managed aquifer recharge interventions are technically feasible, operationally acceptable and economically viable.

Landslides are among the most dangerous natural hazards, particularly in developing countries, where ground observations for operative early warning systems are lacking. In these areas, remote sensing can represent an important detection and monitoring process to predict landslide occurrence in space and time, particularly satellite rainfall products that have improved in terms of accuracy and resolution in recent times. Surprisingly, only a few studies have investigated the capability and effectiveness of these products in landslide prediction in reducing the impact of this hazard on the population. We have performed a comparative study of ground and satellite-based rainfall products for landslide prediction in India by using empirical rainfall thresholds derived from the analysis of historical landslide events. Specifically, we have tested Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) and SM2RAIN-ASCAT satellite rainfall products, and their merging, at daily and hourly temporal resolution, and Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) daily rain gauge observations. A catalogue of 197 rainfall-induced landslides that occurred throughout India in the 13-year period between April 2007 and October 2019 has been used. Results indicate that satellite rainfall products outperform ground observations thanks to their better spatial (0.1 vs. 0.25 ) and temporal (hourly vs. daily) resolutions. The better performance is obtained through the merged GPM and SM2RAIN-ASCAT products, even though improvements in reproducing the daily rainfall (e.g. overestimation of the number of rainy days) are likely needed. These findings open a new avenue for using such satellite products in landslide early warning systems, particularly in poorly gauged areas.

Worldwide, off-grid solar photovoltaic irrigation is currently being developed with the expectation that it will help secure water access to increase food production, reduce fuel-based carbon emissions and energy costs, and increase human resilience to climate change. In developing countries across the Middle East and North Africa, South East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, the adoption of solar technology in agriculture to lift groundwater is rapidly expanding, following decreases in pump costs, economic incentives, and development partner initiatives. Solar irrigation potentially provides a cost-effective and sustainable energy source to secure food production and sustain livelihoods in line with multiple Sustainable Development Goals, but achieving such potential requires improved policies and institutions to coordinate across numerous stakeholders, objectives, and approaches. This paper uses cases and observations from across regions to propose a framework to support policy, regulation, and monitoring for environmentally sustainable and socio-economically inclusive solar irrigation investments. While not exhaustive, the components seek to address the intersection of energy, water and food security, as well as social equity. The paper emphasizes the need for an understanding of how solar irrigation can be scaled to be both accessible for smallholder farmers and environmentally sustainable.

With the increasing population and accelerated urbanization, demands for water are rising for different sectors around the world, including in South Asia. Integrated water resource management (IWRM) offers a promising potential to address multifaceted water demands. This study therefore aimed to address this issue by (i) reviewing key issues related to water, land, and food in South Asian countries, (ii) exploring the prevalent irrigation management strategies in those countries, and (iii) examining the IWRM situation based on a Nepalese case study, and it proposes some options to support effective implementation of IWRM. South Asia, the home to 24% of the worldapos;s population with only 15% and 7% of the worldapos;s arable and permanent crop land and water resources, respectively, is the worst-affected region in the world from undernourishment. Surface irrigation is the dominant irrigation application method in the region, which incurs high water losses due to the lack of flexible water control structures in canal networks. The Nepalese case study revealed a lack of clear institutional arrangements to implement IWRM and disparate and conflicting views about IWRM. Creation and strengthening of basin-level water user organizations, technological improvements, and awareness-raising activities are some potential ways forward to implement IWRM.

In semi-arid India, managed aquifer recharge (MAR) is often used to enhance aquifer storage, and by implication, water security, and climate resilience, by capturing surface runoff, mainly through check dams implemented at the community level. Despite their extensive use, the design of these structures typically does not follow a systematic method to maximize performance. To aid in the improvement of check dam design parameters and location siting, we develop a dynamic tool, which integrates the daily water balance of a check dam with analytical infiltration equations to assess check dam performance measured as temporal dynamics of storage, infiltration, and evaporation. The tool is implemented in R environment and requires meteorological and hydrogeological data, as well as check dam geometry and nearby well-abstractions, if any. The tool is applied to a case study in Saurashtra in Gujarat, where field visits were conducted. Simulations show that typical check dams in the area are able to store a volume between three and seven times their storage capacity annually. Infiltration volumes highly depend on hydroclimatic and hydrogeological conditions, as well as the formation of a clogging layer, highlighting the importance of site selection and periodic maintenance. The tool is validated with data from a previous study in Rajasthan, where daily water balance parameters were monitored. Validation results show an average R 2 of 0.93 between the simulated and measured water levels. The results are adequate to suggest that the tool is able to assist in check dam planning in semi-arid environments.

Irrigation with electric pumps is cheaper than with diesel pumps in West Bengal where electricity and diesel are unsubsidised, and where pump owners typically irrigate their winter rice crop and often sell water to farmers who do not own pumps. Using purposefully selected primary data, we examine whether electric-pump owners have greater water access and rice production during the monsoon and winter seasons compared to diesel-pump owners and water buyers. We also examine whether electric pump-owners provide greater access to irrigation services through water sales. We find that electric-pump ownership increased agricultural outputs both at the extensive and intensive margins in both seasons. The number of clients served by electric-pump owners was greater than those served by diesel-pump owners, but there was only a small difference in total irrigated areas, suggesting that electric-pump owners sell water to farmers with smaller land holdings. The evidence indicates that in an environment where inadequate irrigation has been one of the factors constraining agriculture, electric pumps have the potential to support agricultural growth and generate pro-poor side effects.

This paper proposes scenarios to achieve more crop per drop and irrigation for all in water-scarce irrigation systems, with a particular reference to India. It uses economic water productivity (EWP) and water cost curve for EWP as tools to reallocate irrigation consumptive water use (CWU) and identify economically viable cropping patterns. Assessed in the water-scarce Sina irrigation system in Maharashtra, India, the method shows that drought-tolerant annual crops such as fruits and/or fodder should be the preferred option in irrigated cropping patterns. Cropping patterns with orchard or fodder as permanent fixtures will provide sustainable income in low rainfall years. Orchards in combination with other crops will increase EWP and value of output in moderate to good rainfall years. Governments should create an enabling environment for conjunctive water use and allocation of CWU to achieve a gradual shift to high-value annual/perennial crops as permanent fixtures in cropping patterns.

Safely managed waste reuse may be a sustainable way to protect human health and livelihoods in agrarian-based countries without adequate sewerage. The safe recovery and reuse of fecal sludge-derived fertilizer (FSF) has become an important policy discussion in low-income economies as a way to manage urban sanitation to benefit peri-urban agriculture. But what drives the user acceptance of composted fecal sludge? We develop a preference-ranking model to understand the attributes of FSF that contribute to its acceptance in Karnataka, India. We use this traditionally economic modeling method to uncover cultural practices and power disparities underlying the waste economy. We model farmowners and farmworkers separately, as the choice to use FSF as an employer versus as an employee is fundamentally different. We find that farmers who are willing to use FSF prefer to conceal its origins from their workers and from their own caste group. This is particularly the case for caste-adhering, vegetarian farmowners. We find that workers are open to using FSF if its attributes resemble cow manure, which they are comfortable handling. The waste economy in rural India remains shaped by caste hierarchies and practices, but these remain unacknowledged in policies promoting sustainable ‘business’ models for safe reuse. Current efforts under consideration toward formalizing the reuse sector should explicitly acknowledge caste practices in the waste economy, or they may perpetuate the size and scope of the caste-based informal sector.

India’s agricultural economy has undergone profound transformation in the past 50 years with the rapid spread of groundwater irrigation. The tube well revolution has democratized irrigation, made famines history, helped alleviate agrarian poverty and made India food secure. However, the spread of private tube wells has cannibalized canals and tanks. The large-scale withdrawal of groundwater has caused acute groundwater stress in several parts of the country, leading to adverse environmental and sustainability challenges. Unlike the United States, Australia, and Spain, where tube wells are instruments of wealth creation in industrial agriculture, in India groundwater governance pits livelihoods of the poor against environmental protection. This study explores this unique challenge. It discusses several efforts undertaken to effectively manage groundwater such as direct regulation, indirect levers like energy pricing and rationing, and community-based groundwater governance. It emphasizes on the arrival of solar irrigation and its potential to reform the perverse energy-groundwater nexus. The paper stresses on the need to move away from resource development to resource management mode to solve the groundwater challenge.

South Asiaapos;s heavy reliance on groundwater for irrigated agricultural production supports the livelihoods of tens of millions of smallholder farmers but is being undermined by rampant overexploitation of groundwater. Without major intervention, this is expected to be further exacerbated by growing demand and climate change. Groundwater management, scientific and evidence-based, can make an important contribution to managing unsustainable groundwater use and strengthening the climate resilience of farmers due to groundwaterapos;s unique storage characteristics. This study brings together a set of strategies and solutions to better manage groundwater that cover the augmentation of groundwater recharge through managed aquifer recharge, management of groundwater demand through participatory groundwater management and other methods, and the harnessing synergies of co-dependent sectors. The opportunities, constraints and available evidence for each are analysed and the boundaries, barriers and specificities identified to establish entry points for positive change through policies and implementation programmes.

Groundwater (GW) depletion and recurring floods have become a major concern among researchers and planners across the world. To rejuvenate stressed aquifer and moderate flood impacts, a modified version of managed aquifer recharge (MAR) consisting of a cluster of ten recharge wells (RWs) embedded in a community pond with an area of 2625 m2 and utilizing diverted floodwater was tested on a pilot scale in Ramganga sub basin, India. The approach could recharge a maximum of 72426 m3 of floodwater in 78 days during the wet season. The pond intervention minimized clogging of RWs by retaining maximum silt load of 68.01%. Hydro-geochemically, majority of water samples were of Mg-HCO3 and Ca-HCO3type. Ion exchange processes and weathering of carbonate and silicates were the controlling factors, determining water quality of the area. Total dissolved solids, fluoride, iron, zinc, manganese, chromium, cobalt, nickel, mercury, phosphate, nitrate, and ammonical nitrogen were found within the permissible limits as laid down by World Health Organization except arsenic and lead, which seems to be the inherent problem in the area, as evidenced by water quality analysis of farmers tube wells located upstream and down streams of the recharge site. The coliform presence in the 88.23% of sampled GW may thwart from direct use for drinking whereas it was fit for irrigation. Looking the benefits of modified MAR as a proactive GW quality improvement with good aquifer recharge, it is recommended for scaling up of the intervention across the GW stressed parts of the whole Ram Ganga basin and similar hydro-geological regions elsewhere.

This GRIPP Case Profile assesses whether the proactive involvement of rural communities in the management of groundwater positively contributes towards sustainable resource use. The assessment uses the long-term (2003-2013) Andhra Pradesh Farmer-Managed Groundwater Systems (APFAMGS) project in India as a case study. Implemented across seven districts, the assessment is based on a critical review and synthesis of existing literature and complementary field visits conducted five years after project closure. APFAMGS worked towards creating awareness and bringing about behavioral change to achieve sustainable groundwater use, primarily for irrigation. The approach focused on knowledge transfer and capacity building to set up participatory processes conducive to informal management measures, and technologies supporting participatory hydrological monitoring and crop water budgeting. In addition, awareness creation in relation to demand as well as supply side management options was critical. The analysis suggests that APFAMGS has helped in filling the knowledge and information gaps on groundwater resources among local farming communities. Some degree of long-term reduction in groundwater pumping was observed, but the attribution to the project is not clear, and effects on reducing groundwater level declines may be limited and localized. The APFAMGS approach of participatory groundwater management (PGM) fell short in terms of equity considerations, with implications for the institutional sustainability of the approach. The study provides policy guidance for adopting more inclusive PGM-based institutions on a wider scale.

Solar-powered irrigation has expanded in India at an unprecedented pace—the number of solar irrigation pumps—from less than 4,000 in 2012 to more than 2,50,000 by 2019. It has been argued that besides giving farmers an additional and reliable source of income, grid-connected SIPs also incentivise efficient energy and water use—critical for sustaining groundwater irrigation. The Surya Raitha scheme was the country’s first, state-driven initiative for solarisation of agriculture feeders by replacing subsidy-guzzling, inefficient electric pumps with energy-efficient, net-metered SIPs. An early appraisal of Surya Raitha lauded the scheme as a smart initiative and argued that it could set an example for promoting solar power as a remunerative crop. However, the scheme was eventually executed as a single feeder pilot with some design changes in Nalahalli panchayat from 2015–18. The authors visited the pilot in 2017–18 and 2018–19 to assess if it had delivered the promises of Surya Raitha scheme. The results are a mixed bag and offer important lessons for implementation and scaling out of component C of the Government of India’s Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan policy.

Positioning migrants as quintessential globalisation subjects, this paper reveals how the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the ambivalent positioning of migration as a pathway for human development. Drawing on interviews with international and domestic labour migrants from Bangladesh, India, Laos and Myanmar working in Laos, Myanmar, China, Singapore and Thailand, the paper explores the vulnerabilities, challenges and opportunities that have come with migration and how these have been reconfigured as the pandemic has progressed, disproportionately heightening migrants’ exposure to the virus and their socioeconomic precarity. Through their personal stories, the paper provides insights into the evolving livelihood pathways of migrant workers during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, their (changing) views of migration as a route to progress, and tentatively sets out how ruptures caused by the pandemic may lead to a re-thinking of livelihood pathways for such men and women and their families.

Most of the part of India is already under water-stressed condition. In this regard, the continuous monitoring of the water levels (WL) and storage capacity of reservoirs, lakes, and rivers is very important for the estimation and utilization of water resources effectively. The long term ground observed WL of many of the water bodies is not easily available, which may be very critical for proper water resources management. Satellite radar altimetry is the remote sensing technique, which is being used to study sea surface height for the last three decades. The advancement in radar technology with time has provided the opportunity to exploit the technique to retrieve the WL of inland water bodies. In the current study, an attempt has been made to generate long term time series on WL of around 29 geometrically complicated inland water bodies in India. These water bodies are mainly large reservoirs namely Ban Sagar, Balimela, Bargi, Bhakra, Gandhi Sagar, Hasdeo, Indravati, Jalaput, Kadana, Kolab, Mahi Bajaj, Maithon, Massanjore, Pong, Ramganga, Ranapratap Sagar, Rihand, Sardar Sarovar, Shivaji Sagar, Tilaiya, Ujjani, and Ukai. The WL of these water bodies was retrieved for around two decades using the European Remote-Sensing Satellite – 2 (ERS-2), ENVISAT Radar Altimeter – 2 (ENVISAT RA-2), and Saral-AltiKa altimeters data through Ice-1 retracking algorithm. Further, an attempt has also been made to estimate the WL of gauged/ungauged lakes namely Mansarovar, Pangong, Chilika, Bhopal, and Rann of Kutch over which Saral-AltiKa pass was there. As after July 2016, the SARAL-AltiKa is operating in the drifting orbit, systematic repeated observation of WL data of all reservoirs was not possible. The data of drifted tracks of Saral-AltiKa were tested for WL estimation of Ban Sagar reservoir. As the ERS-2, ENVISAT RA-2 and Saral-AltiKa all were having almost the same passing tracks, a long term WL series of these lakes could be generated from 1997 to 2016. However, at present only Sentinel – 3 is in orbit, the continuous altimeter based WL monitoring of some of these reservoirs (Gandhi Sagar, Nathsagar, Ranapratap, Ujjani, and Ukai) was attempted through Sentinel-3A satellite data from 2016 to 2018. The accuracy of the retrieved WL was than validated against the observed WL. In most of the reservoirs, a systematic bias was found due to the different characteristics and geoid height of each reservoir. The coefficient of determination, R2 , value for a majority of reser voirs was as good as 0.9. In the case of ERS-2, the values of R2 varied for 0.44–0.97 with root mean square error (RMSE) in the range of 0.63–2.72 m. These statistics improved with the ENVISAT RA-2 data analysis, the R2 value reached more than 0.90 for around 11 reservoirs. The highest, 0.99, for Hasdeo and Shivaji Sagar Reservoirs with RMSE of 0.44 and 0.56, respectively. Further, the accuracy improved with the analysis of Saral-AltiKa data. The R2 was always more than 0.9 for each reservoir a

Remote sensing-based observation provides an opportunity to study the spatiotemporal variations of plant phenology across the landscapes. This study aims to examine the phenological variations of different types of sal (Shorea robusta) forests in India and also to explore the relationship between phenology metrics and climatic parameters. Sal, one of the main timber-producing species of India, can be categorized into dry, moist, and very moist sal. The phenological metrics of different types of sal forests were extracted from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-derived Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) time series data (2002–2015). During the study period, the average start of season (SOS) was found to be 16 May, 17 July, and 29 June for very moist, moist, and dry sal forests, respectively. The spatial distribution of mean SOS was mapped as well as the impact of climatic variables (temperature and rainfall) on SOS was investigated during the study period. In relation to the rainfall, values of the coefficient of determination (R2) for very moist, moist, and dry sal forests were 0.69, 0.68, and 0.76, respectively. However, with temperature, R2 values were found higher (R2 = 0.97, 0.81, and 0.97 for very moist, moist, and dry sal, respectively). The present study concluded that MODIS EVI is well capable of capturing the phenological metrics of different types of sal forests across different biogeographic provinces of India. SOS and length of season (LOS) were found to be the key phenology metrics to distinguish the different types of sal forests in India and temperature has a greater influence on SOS than rainfall in sal forests of India.

This paper assesses how the Huruluwewa tank (HWT) irrigation system in the North Central Province of Sri Lanka adapts to climate variability. The lessons learned in the HWT will be helpful for many water-scarce irrigation systems in the country, which bear high climate risks. Recurrent droughts are the bane of agriculture in the Dry Zone, comprising three-fourths of the land area spread over the Northern, North Central and Eastern provinces. In the HWT, the fifteenth largest canal irrigation system in the country, adaptation to climate variability happens on several fronts: changes made by the irrigation management to the water release regime; changes in the cropping patterns practiced by farmers in the command area; and the use of groundwater, which is recharged from rainfall, reservoir storage and canal irrigation, as supplemental irrigation. Such adaptation measures ensure that the available water supply in the reservoir is adequate for 100% cropping intensity over two cropping seasons, even in drought years, and enhances economic water productivity in terms of value per unit of consumptive water use. Moreover, irrigation management should consider groundwater recharge through canal irrigation as a resource, which brings substantial agricultural and economic benefits not only for the command area but also outside the command area. The adaptation patterns implemented in HWT demonstrate how water-scarce irrigation systems can achieve higher economic water productivity, i.e., generate ‘more income per drop’ to enhance climate resilience for people in and outside the canal command areas.

The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) has recently developed an innovative Index-based Flood Insurance (IBFI) product to facilitate the scaling of flood insurance particularly in vulnerable economies, to provide risk cover to poor farmers against crop losses that occur due to floods. While the product developed is technically very sound, the economics of such an intervention is important to ensure the large-scale acceptance and adoption of the product by different stakeholders and for its sustenance in the long term. This paper attempts at conducting an ex ante assessment of the economics of IBFI from the perspectives of the three main stakeholders: farmers, the insurance company and the government. The paper discusses the methodological challenges and data issues encountered in undertaking an economic analysis of such a product. The issues and processes involved have been empirically demonstrated using a theoretical case study based on a synthesis of information drawn from a host of sources and certain assumptions. Field-based data are now being collected and analyzed from the locations where IBFI has recently been piloted by IWMI. This will help in further refining the process of economic evaluation and identifying the experiences of different stakeholders.

Rice is the most important food crop. With the largest rain-fed lowland area in the world, flooding is considered as the most important abiotic stress to rice production in India. With climate change, it is expected that the frequency and severity of the floods will increase over the years. These changes will have a severe impact on the rain-fed agriculture production and livelihoods of millions of farmers in the flood affected region. There are numerous flood risk adaptation and mitigation options available for rain-fed agriculture in India. Procuring, maintaining and distributing the newly developed submergence-tolerant rice variety called Swarna-Sub1 could play an important role in minimizing the effect of flood on rice production. This paper assesses the quantity and cost of a flood-tolerant rice seed variety- Swarna-Sub1, that would be required during the main cropping season of rice i.e., kharif at a district level for 17 major Indian states. The need for SS1 seeds for rice production was assessed by developing a geospatial framework using remote sensing to map the suitability of SS1, to help stakeholders prepare better in managing the flood risks. Results indicate that districts of Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh will require the highest amount of SS1 seeds for flood adaptation strategies. The total estimated seed requirement for these 17 states would cost around 370 crores INR, less than 0.01 percent of Indian central government’s budget allocation for agriculture sector.

This report examines social equality aspects related to resource recovery through solid waste composting and wastewater irrigation. The report shows that women are represented in greatest numbers at the base of the recycling chain, most often as informal waste pickers and as sorters of recyclables with limited access to resources and upward mobility. Despite a wide gender gap in the solid waste and sanitation sectors, women play a key role in both municipal waste reduction and food safety where irrigation water is unsafe. Analyzing the gender dimension is important for understanding household responses to recycling programs, differences between the formal and informal sectors as well as along the waste-to-resource value chain from collection to treatment and reuse. The report stresses the important role of women in household waste management, including waste segregation, and the power of women-dominated waste picker associations, where the informal sector plays an essential role alongside the formal sector.

The general perception of canal irrigation systems in India is one of built infrastructure with low service performance. This paper presents an analytical framework, applied to the Sina medium irrigation system in Maharashtra state of India, to study the performance of an expanded water influence zone (WIZ) including a buffer zone outside the canal command area (CCA) influenced by the irrigation system’s water resources. The framework used satellite-based estimates of land-use and cropping patterns. The results indicate that there is hardly any gap between the irrigation potential created (IPC) and the irrigation potential utilized (IPU) in the CCA. The fraction of consumptive water use (CWU) of irrigation is low in the CCA, but almost one in the WIZ, due to the reuse of return flows in the WIZ. Future investments should focus on increasing economic water productivity ($/m3 ) in order to enhance the resilience of the farming community in the WIZ, which is frequently affected by water scarcity.

Pragmatic, cost-effective, socially inclusive and scalable solutions that reduce risks from recurrent cycles of floods and droughts would greatly benefit emerging economies. One promising approach known as Underground Transfer of Floods for Irrigation (UTFI) involves recharging depleted aquifers with seasonal high flows to provide additional groundwater for irrigated agriculture during dry periods, while also mitigating floods. It has been identified that there is potential for implementing the UTFI approach across large parts of South Asia. The first pilot-scale implementation of UTFI was carried out in a rural community of the Indo-Gangetic Plain in India, and performance of the approach was assessed over three years from a technical, environmental, socioeconomic and institutional perspective. The results are promising and show that UTFI has the potential to enhance groundwater storage and control flooding, if replicated across larger scales. The challenges and opportunities for more wide-scale implementation of UTFI are identified and discussed in this report. In areas with high potential for implementation, policy makers should consider UTFI as an option when making decisions associated with relevant water-related development challenges.

At the end of 2021, CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) will be replaced by Initiatives housed within One CGIAR. This new modality is intended to achieve higher levels of impact at a faster rate and at reduced cost compared to the CRPs. As One CGIAR begins, there is a unique opportunity to reflect on what has worked in different contexts. In this paper, we provide findings that relate to One CGIAR’s overarching view of how it will achieve positive and measurable impacts, and for agricultural research for development (AR4D) more generally. Specifically, we draw from three related CRP evaluations to identify how different types of AR4D approaches have contributed to successful outcomes. In the final section of the paper, we present our conclusions and provide a list of recommendations for the science and technology policy of One CGIAR and possibly other integrated research for development programs.

India initiated Joint Forest Management in 1990, by the National Forest Policy of 1988. It stressed on the involvement of partnership between the Forest Department and local communities for sustainable forest management. This study utilises a game theoretic framework to describe the evolution of this system, and its present structural problems. The model indicates conditions of improvement within the institution to make it sustainable. These recommendations are based on certain assumptions of the existing situation. Therefore, using the conclusion for policy recommendations needs a thorough appreciation of complexities existing in the system, which has been simplified in the model.

Depleting groundwater resources and increasing energy demand with the huge dependence of India’s agriculture on groundwater and energy, and especially in water deficit rice-based production systems, are posing a serious threat to sustained food, water, and energy security. Sustainability concerns of water, energy, and input-intensive rice-based crop production systems have increased the realization for developing and scaling up alternative agro-techniques that can significantly reduce the water and energy requirements in crop production without compromising on crop yield. The interconnectedness between water, energy, and food makes the concept of water, energy, and food (WEF) nexus more relevant to explore integrated solutions to efficient use of limited and/or declining water and energy resources. Conservation agriculture (CA) is gaining currency as an alternate system for rice/cereal-based production systems to conserve water and energy, improve soil health, reduce cost of cultivation, and preserve ecology. This paper explores the concept of WEF nexus and how CA addresses the challenge of harmonizing the synergy among water, energy, and food though WEF ‘nexus gains’ especially in the context of groundwater irrigated rice/cereal based cropping systems.

In many parts of the world, wastewater irrigation has become a common practice because of freshwater scarcity and to increase resource reuse efficiency. Wastewater irrigation has positive impacts on livelihoods and at the same time, it has adverse impacts related to environmental pollution. Hydrochemical processes and groundwater behaviour need to be analyzed for a thorough understanding of the geochemical evolution in the wastewater irrigated systems. The current study focuses on a micro-watershed in the peri-urban Hyderabad of India, where farmers practice intensive wastewater irrigation. To evaluate the major factors that control groundwater geochemical processes, we analyzed the chemical composition of the wastewater used for irrigation and groundwater samples on a monthly basis for one hydrological year. The groundwater samples were collected in three settings of the watershed: wastewater irrigated area, groundwater irrigated area and upstream peri-urban area. The collected groundwater and wastewater samples were analyzed for major anions, cations and nutrients. We systematically investigated the anthropogenic influences and hydrogeochemical processes such as cation exchange, precipitation and dissolution of minerals using saturated indices, and freshwater-wastewater mixtures at the aquifer interface. Saturation indices of halite, gypsum and fluorite are exhibiting mineral dissolution and calcite and dolomite display mineral precipitation. Overall, the results suggest that the groundwater geochemistry of the watershed is largely controlled by long-term wastewater irrigation, local rainfall patterns and water-rock interactions. The study results can provide the basis for local decision-makers to develop sustainable groundwater management strategies and to control the aquifer pollution influenced by wastewater irrigation.

Globally, 50% of the population relies on on-site sanitation systems (OSS) such as septic tanks and pit latrines and is, hence, in need of Fecal Sludge Management (FSM) solutions. India is a classic example, given that its government built more than 100 million toilets with the majority relying on OSS. With 400 fecal sludge treatment plants (FSTPs) in various stages of planning, procurement and construction, this report comes at an opportune time to present findings on FSM business models already implemented across India. Interviews were conducted with a total of 105 Emptying and Transport (Eamp;T) operators in 72 towns and cities across 16 states in India, 22 representatives from municipalities that own emptying vehicles, 18 FSTP operators and more than 30 institutions. In addition, procurement tenders for Eamp;T and FSTPs in 13 states were analyzed. In total, 18 business models were identified, several with energy or nutrient recovery components. The analysis of Eamp;T operators revealed clear differences that steer a business towards success or failure. The majority of operators still dispose fecal sludge in an unsafe manner, due to the lack of official disposal or treatment sites. In comparison to sewer networks, the capital and operating costs (per capita) of FSTPs were significantly lower. The report provides evidence-based discussions on policies and recommendations for scaling and sustaining FSM.

This report presents a spatial analysis conducted at global scale to identify areas of high suitability for implementing the Underground Transfer of Floods for Irrigation (UTFI) approach. The study used multiple global spatial datasets, and the related data were arranged under three categories – water supply, water demand and water storage – to assess global UTFI suitability. Among the river basins with high suitability, the Awash in Ethiopia, Ramganga in India (one of the major tributaries of the Ganges River Basin) and Chao Phraya in Thailand were selected for the economic analysis in this study. The results from this study are intended to provide a first step towards identifying the broad areas (at the river basin or country scale) where more detailed investigation would be worthwhile to ascertain the technical and economic feasibility of UTFI, with greater confidence.

We present a new systems model that encompasses both environmental and socioeconomic outcomes to simulate impacts of organic resource use on livelihoods of smallholder farmers in low to middle income countries. It includes impacts on soils, which in many countries are degrading with long term loss of organic matter. Many farmers have easy access to animal manures that could be used to increase soil organic matter, but this precious resource is often diverted to other purposes, such as fuels, also resulting in loss of the nutrients needed for crop production. This model simulates impacts of different management options on soil organic matter turnover, availability of water and nutrients, crop and animal production, water and energy use, labour requirements and household income and expenditure. An evaluation and example application from India are presented and used to illustrate the importance of considering the whole farm system when developing recommendations to help farmers improve their soils.

Groundwater governance has become an intractable policy issue, which has many implications for the living standards and well-being of millions of rural poor in South Asia. Groundwater governance is complex as it is influenced by various hydrogeological, sociopolitical and socioeconomic factors. Unregulated groundwater extraction rates in South Asia have depleted the aquifers causing a raft of socioeconomic, environmental and human health problems. This paper analyzes de facto rights in groundwater markets and other emerging ‘groundwater-sharing institutional arrangements’ in India. Using a multi-dimensional property rights model, the paper decomposes de facto groundwater rights while drawing insights and broad policy lessons. The findings indicate that there is much scope for enhancing the ‘small group groundwater sharing’ governed by social regulatory measures. Moreover, distortionary subsidies for agriculture in general and groundwater development, in particular, have had an adverse impact of the resource use and merit further attention.

The last decade has witnessed rapid progress in energy cooperation between the countries of the BBIN (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal) sub-region. Cooperation has been bilateral, with each of the countries entering into separate energy development and trade agreement with India, broadly similar to the water sector where national governments engage bilaterally on transboundary cooperation and dispute resolution. A more recent wave of electrical grid interconnections and hydro-energy cooperation has emerged with governments increasingly shifting from bilateral to multilateral energy-sharing agreements. This trend holds considerable potential for regional transboundary water governance. Based on documentary and media analysis along with interviews of key BBIN policy-makers, we identify and examine in this paper four factors for future progress: 1) technical cooperation can be extended to information-sharing for policies and institutions to regulate and manage water resources; 2) India must seize the opportunities and benefits of enhanced regional leadership in the region; 3) simultaneous informal discussion and diplomatic negotiation of water, energy and their nexus can provide BBIN countries the opportunity to highlight potential gains of cooperation and interstate interdependencies; and 4) regional cooperation can give a strong impetus to nations for advancing structural reforms, building institutions and capacity, developing a shared knowledge base, bridging infrastructural gaps, attracting private sector participation, and addressing poverty alleviation goals including job creation.

Peri-urban areas are characterized by multifunctional land-use patterns forming a mosaic of built-up and agricultural areas. They are critical for providing food and other agricultural products, livelihood opportunities and multiple ecosystem services, which makes them transformative where urban and rural spaces blend. We analyzed land use changes in a peri-urban micro-watershed in Southern India by using Google Earth data to understand the micro-level spatio-temporal dynamics. This study aims at understanding the peri-urban agriculture and landscape changes as related to the change in use of wastewater and groundwater for irrigation. The temporal dynamics of peri-urban system including the changes in built-up, paragrass, paddy rice and vegetable cultivation, groundwater and wastewater irrigated areas in the watershed were evaluated. The detected changes indicate that, as a consequence of urban pressures, agricultural landscapes are being converted into built-up areas and, at the same time, former barren land is converted to agricultural plots. The mapped land use data are used in landscape change modelling for predicting the peri-urban agricultural dynamics and the driving factors in the watershed. Combined with the mapping and modelling approaches for land use change analysis, our results form the basis for integrated resources management in the wastewater influenced peri-urban systems.

Urbanisation will be one of the 21st centuryapos;s most transformative trends. By 2050, it will increase from 55% to 68%, more than doubling the urban population in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Urbanisation has multifarious (positive as well as negative) impacts on the wellbeing of humans and the environment. The 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) form the blueprint to achieve a sustainable future for all. Clean Water and Sanitation is a specific goal (SDG 6) within the suite of 17 interconnected goals. Here we provide an overview of some of the challenges that urbanisation poses in relation to SDG 6, especially in developing economies. Worldwide, several cities are on the verge of water crisis. Water distribution to informal settlements or slums in megacities (e.g. N50% population in the megacities of India) is essentially non-existent and limits access to adequate safe water supply. Besides due to poor sewer connectivity in the emerging economies, there is a heavy reliance on septic tanks, and other on-site sanitation (OSS) system and by 2030, 4.9 billion people are expected to rely on OSS. About 62–93% of the urban population in Vietnam, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Indonesia rely on septic tanks, where septage treatment is rare. Globally, over 80% of wastewater is released to the environment without adequate treatment. About 11% of all irrigated croplands is irrigated with such untreated or poorly treated wastewater. In addition to acute and chronic health effects, this also results in significant pollution of often-limited surface and groundwater resources in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Direct and indirect water reuse plays a key role in global water and food security. Here we offer several suggestions to mitigate water and food insecurity in emerging economies.

Study Region: Semi-Arid Regions of Marathawada, Vidarbha and Saurashtra in India Study Focus: To understand and evaluate the impact of Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) efforts. New Hydrological Insights for the Region: Since 1990, the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, India witnessed a massive community-based distributed groundwater recharge movement, initially catalyzed by NGOs and later supported by the government. The region has witnessed visible improvement in groundwater resources during recent years, which was attributed by some researchers to the recharge movement. A competing hypothesis holds that improvement in groundwater levels in Saurashtra are a result more due to a succession of good rainfall years during 2001–2014, aided by transfer of surface water from a big dam on Narmada River, rather than the distributed recharge movement. We develop and implement a 2-way test of these competing hypotheses: First, we compare groundwater recharge patterns in Saurashtra during a recent period of high rainfall years with a similar period before the onset of the recharge movement; second, for both these high rainfall periods, we also compare groundwater recharge patterns in two other comparable aquifer and terrain regions, viz., Vidarbha and Marathawada in Maharastra, which did not experience recharge movement on the same scale as Saurashtra did. Our results support the hypothesis that the community supported distributed recharge movement is the key to improved groundwater recharge in Saurashtra during 2004-09.

India has an intricate nexus of groundwater irrigation, energy and climate. Subsidized electricity supply has led to unregulated groundwater pumping, causing a decrease in groundwater level and increase in carbon emissions. This complex nexus necessitates estimation of carbon emissions from groundwater irrigation. The study uses actual pumping data on 20.5 million groundwater structures from the Fifth Minor Irrigation Census (reference year 2013–14) to estimate carbon emissions. The estimates show that groundwater irrigation emits 45.3–62.3 MMT of carbon annually, contributing 8–11% of India’s total carbon emission. This analysis shows deep tubewells have a huge carbon footprint, and their growing number is a serious environmental concern. Spatial analysis reveals India’s western and peninsular region, which houses 85% of the country’s over-exploited groundwater blocks, contributes most to carbon emission. Moreover, this region hosts 27 districts which are groundwater–energy–climate nexus hotspots, together accounting for 34% of carbon emissions from groundwater irrigation. Comparison with the previous estimate reveals that carbon emission from groundwater irrigation nearly doubled between 2000 and 2013. Findings of this study are vital to the discourse on the increasing environmental costs of groundwater pumping in the country and will contribute to carbon emission mitigation strategies.

The managed aquifer recharge (MAR) of excess monsoonal runoff to mitigate downstream flooding and enhance groundwater storage has received limited attention across the Indo-Gangetic Plain of the Indian subcontinent. Here, we assess the performance of a pilot MAR trial carried out in the Ramganga basin in India. The pilot consisted of a battery of 10 recharge wells, each 24 to 30 m deep, installed in a formerly unused village pond situated adjacent to an irrigation canal that provided river water during the monsoon season. Over three years of pilot testing, volumes ranging from 26,000 to 62,000 m3 were recharged each year over durations ranging from 62 to 85 days. These volumes are equivalent to 1.3–3.6% of the total recharge in the village, and would be sufficient to irrigate 8 to 18 hectares of rabi season crop. High inter-year variation in performance was observed, with yearly average recharge rates ranging from 430 to 775 m3 day-1 (164–295 mm day-1 ) and overall average recharge rates of 580 m3 day-1 (221 mm day-1 ). High intra-year variation was also observed, with recharge rates at the end of recharge period reducing by 72%, 88% and 96% in 2016, 2017 and 2018 respectively, relative to the initial recharge rates. The observed inter- and intra-year variability is due to the groundwater levels that strongly influence gravity recharge heads and lateral groundwater flows, as well as the source water quality, which leads to clogging. The increase in groundwater levels in response to MAR was found to be limited due to the high specific yield and transmissivity of the alluvial aquifer, and, in all but one year, was difficult to distinguish from the overall groundwater level rise due to a range of confounding factors. The results from this study provide the first systematic, multi-year assessment of the performance of pilot-scale MAR harnessing village ponds in the intensively groundwater irrigated, flood prone, alluvial aquifers of the Indo-Gangetic Plain.

Solar-powered irrigation pumps (SPIPs) have been promoted in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (EGP) in recent decades, but rates of adoption are low. This case study assesses the evidence from several solar pump business models being adopted in parts of the EGP, particularly eastern Nepal and northern India, and explores how different models perform in various contexts. It documents lessons for increasing farmers’ resilience to droughts through better groundwater use by promotion of SPIPs. Groundwater access for agriculture in the past was dependent on diesel and electric pumps, respectively constrained by costs and reliability of energy. Both government and nongovernment agencies have promoted SPIPs in the Ganges basin for irrigation and drinking purposes. SPIPs receive different levels of subsidies across countries and states in the region to facilitate adoption and ensure continuous and timely irrigation, which particularly benefits small and marginal farmers. Because the EGP faces variability in water availability, the SPIPs could help in building drought resilience. However, because low operating costs for SPIPs does little to incentivize farmers to use water efficiently, one critical question is how to balance equitable access to SPIPs while ensuring groundwater overdraft is not perpetuated. Farmers’ awareness of efficient water management options is crucial to avoid overextraction of groundwater.

Interventions that are robust, cost effective, and scalable are in critical demand throughout South Asia to offset growing water scarcity and avert increasingly frequent water-related disasters. This case study presents two complementary forms of intervention that transform water hazards (floodwater) into a resource (groundwater) to boost agricultural productivity and enhance livelihoods. The first intervention, holiya, is simple and operated by individual farmers at the plot/farm scale to control local flooding in semiarid climates. The second is the underground transfer of floods for irrigation (UTFI) and operates at the village scale to offset seasonal floods from upstream in humid climates. Rapid assessments indicate that holiyas have been established at more than 300 sites across two districts in North Gujarat since the 1990s, extending the crop growing season and improving water quality. UTFI knowledge and experience has grown rapidly since implementation of a pilot trial in western Uttar Pradesh in 2015 and is now embedded within government programs with commitments for modest scaling up. Both approaches can help farmers redress the multiple impacts associated with floods, droughts, and groundwater overexploitation at a range of scales from farm plot to the river basin. The potential for wider uptake across South Asia depends on setting up demonstration sites beyond India and overcoming gaps in technical knowledge and institutional capacity.

This paper explores the impact of irrigation on India’s mixed crop-based dairy production system. It uses a four-equation recursive regression model to outline the impact of water applied under different modes (groundwater irrigation, surface water irrigation, and rainfall) on the bovine herd efficiency and dairy output. The results of the model show that rain-fed areas account for 47% of the total value of milk output, whereas area under groundwater irrigation and surface water irrigation account for 38% and 15%, respectively. Of all the different irrigation modes, groundwater irrigated areas have the most efficient bovine herd for milk production. The addition of one hectare of groundwater in an irrigated area adds around Indian Rupees (INR) 20,000 (~US $448) to the gross value of milk output of a district, which is twice the addition of one hectare of surface water in an irrigated area and five times the addition of one hectare of rainfed area. Based on the results of the model, the paper suggests that expanding well irrigation in the groundwater-abundant eastern and central tribal belt of India can yield a positive impact on milk production.

Soil moisture is a highly suitable indicator for assessing agricultural drought, as plants start to wilt when there is not sufficient soil water to meet evapotranspiration demand. In this study, we provide insights on information obtained from satellite surface soil moisture observations (as compared to modeled soil moisture and observed ground precipitation) on water stress and its impact on crop production variability in India. The analysis involved generating a Standardized Soil Moisture Index using (1) satellite soil moisture observations from the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative and (2) the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 soil moisture data set as well as producing a Standardized Precipitation Index using ground-based rainfall observations from the Indian Meteorological Department. Spanning the period from 1998 to 2015, the study covers Maharashtra and Karnataka states. These states were recently hit by a severe drought, resulting in significant crop failure and human losses. Results show that soil moisture is an important limiting factor for crop production. As such, it is more suitable for representing agricultural drought than precipitation during drought conditions, as it correlates more closely with reduced crop yields. Additionally, using the satellite-based Standardized Soil Moisture Index seemed to explain crop yield reductions better than when we applied the model-based Standardized Soil Moisture Index from Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2, particularly for irrigated crops (i.e., wheat). This preliminary study can underpin future crop-forecasting tools assimilating satellite soil moisture data. In practice, satellite soil moisture may help to improve the efficiency of agricultural and irrigation management practices.

Purpose: The need to increase women’s access to extension has been extensively discussed. This paper assesses women’s access to extension services through the Plantwise extension approach as a baseline for future comparison of women’s access through other extension approaches. It also assesses whether crops that men and women farmers seek plant health advice on are similar or not, and attempts to disperse assumptions that continue to be made about what crops women and men grow. Approach: We analysed data from the Plantwise Online Management System for 13 countries using descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings: We show that the Plantwise extension approach enables higher levels of women’s access than generally reported for agricultural extension, that the crops that women and men seek extension advice on is not gender dependent, and there are few clear distinctions between their crops of interest. Practical implications: There is limited literature studying gender inclusiveness in different extension approaches. The findings add to the documentation of assessing women’s access to demand-driven extension. Theoretical implications: Plantwise is a new extension approach which needs to be assessed from spatial and temporal perspectives to understand whether demand-driven extension enables increased women’s access over time. Originality/value: Extension service provision is often based on assumptions about what crops are being grown. Small studies have challenged these assumptions, but this large dataset enables us to test these assumptions more thoroughly across 13 countries adding to the weight of evidence against the existence of women’s and men’s crops.

Protecting flood prone locations through floodwater recharge of the depleted aquifers and using it for protecting dry season irrigated agriculture is the rationale for a form of intervention termed as ‘underground transfer of floods for irrigation’ (UTFI). This helps reduce the intensity of seasonal floods by tapping and storing excess floodwater in aquifers for productive agricultural use. This paper presents a case study of managing the recharge interventions in the context of the Ramganga basin, India. Using a case study approach, this study determines the socio-economic and institutional context of the study area, proposes three potential routes to institutionalize UTFI, and provides insights for scaling up the interventions in the Ganges and other river basins that face seasonal floods and dry season water shortages. Managing the interventions involves community participation in regular operations and maintenance tasks. Given the limited scale of the pilot UTFI intervention implemented to date, and the socio-economic and institutional context of the case study region, the benefits are not conspicuous, though the piloting helped in identifying potential ways forward for the long-term management of the pilot site, and for scaling up the interventions. Initially pilot site management was handled by the project team working closely with the community leaders and villagers. As the intervention was demonstrated to perform effectively, management was handed over to the district authorities after providing appropriate training to the government personnel to manage the system and liaise with the local community to ensure the site is operated and managed appropriately. The district administration is willing to support UTFI by pooling money from different sources and routing them through the sub-district administration. While this is working in the short term, the paper outlines a programmatic longer term approach for wider replication.

The Ganga is an international transboundary river that flows across three major riparian countries: India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, where India shares a significant proportion of the total basin area. The river system is highly dynamic and regularly floods in all three countries due to abundant rainfall in a short period of only four months each year that causes tremendous loss of both property and human life. In this study, we have done a synoptic review to synthesize the hydrology, hydrogeology, and modeling studies that have analyzed hydrological changes and their impacts in the Ganga basin. This review also identifies some of the knowledge gaps and discusses possible options for enhancing the understanding of sustainable water development and management. This review indicated that transparent data sharing, use of satellite-based observations along with in-situ data, integrated hydro-economic modeling linked to reliable coupled surface–groundwater models, a central shared decision support center for early warning systems to deal with hydrological extremes, joint river commissions and monitoring teams, and multilateral water sharing treaties (agreements) are required to promote sustainable and equitable distribution of water resources and to avoid water sharing conflicts in the Ganga basin.

This study assessed and mapped the aboveground tree carbon stock using very high-resolution satellite imagery (VHRS)—WorldView-2 in Barkot forest of Uttarakhand, India. The image was pan-sharpened to get the spectrally and spatially good-quality image. High-pass filter technique of pan-sharpening was found to be the best in this study. Object-based image analysis (OBIA) was carried out for image segmentation and classification. Multi-resolution image segmentation yielded 74% accuracy. The segmented image was classified into sal (Shorea robusta), teak (Tectona grandis) and shadow. The classification accuracy was found to be 83%. The relationship between crown projection area (CPA) and carbon was established in the field for both sal and teak trees. Using the relationship between CPA and carbon, the classified CPA map was converted to carbon stock of individual trees. Mean value of carbon stock per tree for sal was found to be 621 kg, whereas for teak it was 703 kg per tree. The study highlighted the utility of OBIA and VHRS imagery for mapping high-resolution carbon stock of forest.

Plant functional types (PFTs) have been widely used to represent the vegetation characteristics and their interlinkage with the surrounding environment in various earth system models. The present study aims to generate a PFT map for the Northwest Himalayan (NWH) foothills of India using seasonality parameters, topographic conditions, and climatic information from various satellite data and products using Random Forest (RF) algorithm in Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. The seasonality information was extracted by carrying out a harmonic analysis of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time-series (2008 to 2018) from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Terra surface reflectance 8 day 500 m data (MOD09A1). For topographic information, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) digital elevation model (DEM) derived aspect and Multi-Scale Topographic Position Index (MTPI) were used, whereas, for climatic variables, WorldClim V2 Bioclimatic (Bioclim) variables were used. RF, a machine learning classifier, was used to generate a PFT map using these datasets. The overall accuracy of the resulting PFT map was found to be 83.33% with a Kappa coefficient of 0.71. The present study provides an effective approach for PFT classification using different well-established, freely available satellite data and products in the GEE platform. This approach can also be implemented in different ecological settings by using various meaningful variables at varying resolutions.

The challenge of sustainable development is enshrined in the ambitious 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development of the United Nations. The 17 goals and its various targets are unique with water being one of the cross cutting themes. Taking examples of past water dependent societies in a comparative setting, this paper challenges the new field of Archaeo-hydrology in how it could contribute to the 2030 Agenda based on what can be learned from past and contemporary water dependent societies. We find that societies have coped with climate variability by diversifying both in occupation, livelihoods and use of space. Sharing the costs of coordinating such diversification requires inclusive institutions and technological innovations. Similar to technology, new social institutions emerge in response to a changing environment. However, in tandem, slow out-migration of people seems to go on, driven by better livelihood opportunities outside. If technological innovation and institutional evolution are not rapid enough, then migration seems to take over as the adaptive mechanism in response to environmental changes resulting in rapid dispersal. This means that migration from smaller, less endowed societies can be expected to be rapid, with repetitive cycles of abandonment and rehabilitation after each critical climate or adverse environment events. Consequently, more place based local innovations should be encouraged and local economies should be diversified to increase the resilience so that vulnerable societies may inherit favourable know-how for a sustainable future under changing climatic conditions.

This paper tries to shift the focus of research on the impact of natural disasters on economic growth from global and national levels to sub-national levels. Inadequate sub-national level information is a significant lacuna for planning spatially targeted climate change adaptation investments. A fixed-effect panel regression analyses of 19 states from 2001 to 2015 assess the impacts of exposure to floods and droughts on the growth of gross state domestic product (GSDP) and human development index (HDI) in India. The flood and drought exposure are estimated using satellite data. The 19 states comprise 95% of the population and contribute 93% to the national GDP. The results show that floods indeed expose a large area, but droughts have the most significant impacts at the sub-national level. The most affected GSDPs are in the non-agriculture sectors, positively by the floods and negatively by droughts. No significant influence on human development may be due to substantial investment on mitigation of flood and drought impacts and their influence on better income, health, and education conditions. Because some Indian states still have a large geographical area, profiling disasters impacts at even smaller sub-national units such as districts can lead to effective targeted mitigation and adaptation activities, reduce shocks, and accelerate income growth and human development.

We have evaluated the proto-indica model that is the proponent of multiple domestication of rice but a single origin of the key genes in japonica. Attainment of non-shattering, a marker; appeared least integral to the initial phases of domestication. The other archeological determinants were less discernible in specimens. Existence of the key domestication genes in the wild rice and absence of introgression signature in indica further weakened the hypothesis. Moreover, japonica introduction from China happened in a backdrop of a culture exploiting domesticated rice. Summarizing, we propose that proto-indica model has a little bearing on rice domestication.

River flows connect people, places, and other forms of life, inspiring and sustaining diverse cultural beliefs, values, and ways of life. The concept of environmental flows provides a framework for improving understanding of relationships between river flows and people, and for supporting those that are mutually beneficial. Nevertheless, most approaches to determining environmental flows remain grounded in the biophysical sciences. The newly revised Brisbane Declaration and Global Action Agenda on Environmental Flows (2018) represents a new phase in environmental flow science and an opportunity to better consider the co-constitution of river flows, ecosystems, and society, and to more explicitly incorporate these relationships into river management. We synthesize understanding of relationships between people and rivers as conceived under the renewed definition of environmental flows. We present case studies from Honduras, India, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia that illustrate multidisciplinary, collaborative efforts where recognizing and meeting diverse flow needs of human populations was central to establishing environmental flow recommendations. We also review a small body of literature to highlight examples of the diversity and interdependencies of human-flow relationships—such as the linkages between river flow and human well-being, spiritual needs, cultural identity, and sense of place—that are typically overlooked when environmental flows are assessed and negotiated. Finally, we call for scientists and water managers to recognize the diversity of ways of knowing, relating to, and utilizing rivers, and to place this recognition at the center of future environmental flow assessments.

The design and diffusion of context-specific technologies is centrally important in the multi-dimensional, complex farming systems in arid and semi-arid regions. This paper uses a mixed-method framework to characterize the complexity and heterogeneity of smallholder farming systems and identifies constraints to and opportunities for sustainable intensification. Specifically, the study: (i) characterized farm household typologies based on the diversity of livelihood assets; (ii) co-designed context- specific interventions through an iterative participatory process; and (iii) ex-ante evaluated such interventions to inform multiple stakeholders. We explored farming system diversity using data from 224 farm households in western Rajasthan, India. Employing multivariate statistical techniques and participatory validation, we identified 7 distinct farm household types. Participatory appraisal with multiple stakeholders revealed heterogeneity across farm household types. For instance, the interest of farmers in integrating perennial fruit trees even among the rainfed farm household types markedly varied: household type 1 preferred the multipurpose forestry tree, khejri which requires low labor inputs; household type 2 preferred market-oriented horticulture production; household type 3 did not opt for perennials but for small ruminants; and household type 4 (dominated by women) opted for small horticulture kitchen gardens. The study demonstrated the utility of a mixed-methods approach that addresses multi-dimensional heterogeneity to generate insights and assist in co-designing locally appropriate technologies across different farm types and agro-ecological regions to achieve sustainable intensification.

In low- and middle-income countries, the management of fecal sludge from on-site sanitation systems has received little attention over many decades, resulting in insufficient or missing regulations to guide investments and management options. To address this gap, this report examines existing and emerging guidelines and regulations for fecal sludge management (FSM) along the sanitation service chain (user interface, containment, emptying, transport, treatment, valorization, reuse or disposal). It also draws empirical examples from guidelines across the globe to support policy-makers, planners, and sanitation and health officers, as well as consultants in low- and middle-income countries in the development and design of local and national FSM guidelines and regulations.

Mainstreaming gender in water governance through “how to do gender” toolkits has long been a development focus. It has been widely argued that such toolkits simplify the complex, nuanced realities of inequalities by gender in relation to water and fail to pay attention to the fact that the proposed users of such gender-water toolkits, i.e. mostly male water sector professionals, lack the skills, motivation and/or incentives to apply these toolkits in their everyday work. We adopt a feminist political ecology lens to analyse some of the barriers to reduce social inequalities in the management of global commons such as international rivers. Our findings highlight the leap of faith made in the belief that gender toolkits, as they exist, will filter through layers of a predominantly masculine institutional culture to enable change in ground realities of complex inequalities by gender. Analysing the everyday workings of two hydropower development organisations in India, we show how organisational structures demonstrate a blatant culture of masculinity. These two organisations, like many others, are sites where hierarchies and inequalities based on gender are produced, performed and reproduced. This performance of masculinity promotes and rewards a culture of technical pride in re-shaping nature, abiding by and maintaining hierarchy and demonstrating physical strength and emotional hardiness. In such a setting, paying attention to vulnerabilities, inequalities and disparities are incompatible objectives.

Despite frequent calls for transformative approaches for engaging in agrarian change and water governance, we observe little change in everyday development and research praxis. Empirical studies on transformative engagements with gender relations among smallscale or tenant farmers and water user groups are particularly rare. We explore transformative engagements through an approach based on critical pedagogy (Freire, 1996) and transformative practice (Leder, 2018). We examine opportunities to promote empathy and critical consciousness on gender norms, roles and relations in agriculture and resource management. We developed and piloted an innovative “Participatory Gender Training for Community Groups” as part of two internationally funded water security projects. The training consists of three activities and three discussions to reflect on gender roles in families, communities and agriculture, to discuss the gendered division of labour and changing gender relations over time and space, and to create empathy and resolve conflicts through a bargaining role play with switched genders. The approach was implemented in twelve villages across four districts in Nepal and India (Bihar, West Bengal). Our results show how the training methods can provide an open space to discuss local gender roles within households, agriculture and natural resource management. Discussing own gender norms promotes critical consciousness that gender norms are socially constructed and change with age, class, caste and material and structural constraints such as limited access to water and land. The activities stimulated enthusiasm and inspiration to reflect on possible change towards more equal labor division and empathy towards those with weaker bargaining power. Facilitators have the most important role in transformative engagements and need to be trained to reinterpret training principles in local contexts, and to apply facilitation skills to focus on transforming rather than reproducing gender norms. We argue that the gender training methods can initiate transformative practice with the gender-water-agriculture nexus by raising critical consciousness of farmers, community mobilisers, and project staff on possibilities of social change “in situ”.

Criticism and contestation of large dam projects have a long, strong history in India. In this paper, we analyze diverse civil-society responses to large dam projects in the Eastern Himalaya region of India, which has in the past decades been presented as a clean, green, climate-mitigating way of generating energy, but critiqued for its adverse impacts more recently. We draw our findings primarily based on interviews with NGOs involved in environmental and/or water issues in Darjeeling, interviews with those involved in a local people’s movement ‘Affected Citizens of Teesta’, and participatory research over the course of three years between 2015 and 2018. Our findings show how doing development for the state, the market and/or donor organizations compromises the ability of NGOs in the Darjeeling region to hold these actors accountable for social and environmental excesses. In the same region, dam projects in North Sikkim led to a local people’s movement, where expressions of indigeneity, identity and place were used to critique and contest the State’s agenda of development, in ways that were symptomatically different to NGOs tied down by relations of developmental bureaucracy. Our findings reveal how the incursion of State authority, presence and power in civil-society undermines the civil society mandate of transformative social change, and additionally, how the geographical, political, institutional and identity-based divides that fragment diverse civil-society institutions and actors make it challenging to counter the increasingly consensual politics of environmental governance.

Water storage is crucial for water security (WS) in countries with monsoon-driven climates. Tanks significantly contribute to WS by augmenting water supply to agricultural production in parts of south and Southeast Asia. The present paper assesses the potential locations of small tanks for rehabilitation to enhance WS. The Bhadrachalam catchment from the Godavari river basin, India was selected for the study. Remote Sensing and Geographical Information Systems techniques were used to identify the small tanks and water spread areas for augmenting storage. The cost -benefit analysis was also carried out for the identified tanks with various scenarios, cropping pattern and management options. The returns from desiliting, increase in area under the tank command with paddy and cotton crops are found to be beneficial. It concludes that rehabilitation of small tanks should be considered a priority investment as it will not only enhance WS and financial benefits to local communities, but also augment river flows in the non-monsoon season.

Sitting on one of the world’s best aquifers, large swathes of West Bengal has groundwater in abundance. Even so, the state’s farmers incur one of the highest irrigation costs in India. In spite of a series of groundwater and electricity policy changes, West Bengal’s farmers fare no better. This paper brings findings from a yearlong research pilot based in Monoharpur village of Birbhum district. The pilot shows how the current electricity tariff structure has made irrigation unaffordable for small and marginal farmers, and has made irrigation services market tightly oligopolistic. If not revised, the agricultural economy, especially that of summer paddy which ensures household security of poor farmers, is likely to taper off in future.

During the Green Revolution era, paddy cultivation was promoted with much vigor within Kerala. The canal systems that supplied timely irrigation played an important role in promoting food security within the state as rice self-sufficiency became a political concern. Under changing circumstances, paddy cultivation has seen a drastic downward trend in the last 30 years. One of the reasons for this trend is the irregularity in water supply through canals resulting from the flow fluctuations due to various hydroelectric projects that have come up in the upstream and inefficiencies arising out of low maintenance and performance management. At the same time, farmers in Kerala have largely shifted towards the cultivation of high valued cash crops. This paper presents a case study of the Chalakudy River Diversion Scheme which once served the irrigation requirements of paddy in the Chalakudy river basin. The paper tries to shed light on how farmers have adapted to the evolving nature of CRDS as they continually shift towards cash crops that require better water control. In this process, CRDS has ended up as an entity vastly different from the intent of its planners. The role of canal irrigation, changing from direct flow irrigation to complementing recharge or replenishment of groundwater and surface water storages, may point towards the imminent transformation of canal irrigation in the rest of India.

Groundwater irrigation has been central to India’s irrigated agriculture. India is the largest extractor of groundwater, pumping nearly 250 km3 every year for irrigation. The abstraction of groundwater is closely coupled with access to subsidized or free electricity in the country. Supply of free electricity has led to the perverse groundwater-energy nexus in the country. This nexus has resulted in grave economic and environmental repercussions. There is a mounting fiscal burden of energy subsidies in the country, which has led many power utilities at the helm of bankruptcy. At the same time, free power has attributed to the groundwater depletion at an alarming rate in many parts of the country. Hence, it becomes important to understand whether these economic and environmental costs of groundwater irrigation are commensurate with its benefits. This study takes a look at the energy productivity of groundwater irrigated agriculture in the districts of India and assesses its contribution to the agricultural output.

Easy access, round the year availability even in the draught years and lack of regulations coupled with advanced and cheap technology to create extraction structure have been major factors responsible for indiscriminate extraction of groundwater. With a rise in population leading to increasing water requirement, the untapped groundwater resource has been the biggest bone of contention amongst multiple stakeholders with a threat of serious depletion in many parts of the world especially regions without perennial surface water availability and arid or semi-arid climate. India is the largest extractor of groundwater and the alarming situation has already tapped in. Semi-arid region of Saurashtra has the most extreme case with just 500 mm of rainfall and almost 40 percent of coefficient of variation leading to frequent drought-like condition. Saurashtraapos;s almost 83 per cent of the total irrigated area is through groundwater. High extraction of groundwater of Saurashtra caused major groundwater depletion in the region. The condition even intensified during consecutive drought years of 1985-87 when Saurashtra received just 93 mm of total rainfall during 1987 on top of 60 per cent rainfall in 2 consecutive drought years of 1985 (299 mm) and 1986 (298 mm). Severity of the condition led to a mass movement for rainwater harvesting as well as a decentralized groundwater recharge at an unprecedented scale. The community-led movement with the support of local leaders, merchants and religious gurus in the early 90s got support from the state government. The movement was formalized as Sardar Patel Sahkari Jal Sanchay Yojana (SPSJSY) soon after Narendra Modi assumed office as Chief Minister of Gujarat. Under this pan-Gujarat scheme, 5 lakh structures created (113738 check dams, 55917 bori bandhs, 240199 farm ponds, besides 62532 large and small check dams) making way for 808 MCM (Million Cubic Meter) of storage capacity. The scheme performed best in Saurashtra as almost 60 per cent of this storage capacity (482 MCM) confined in 7 districts of Saurashtra. The success of the program was much lauded by state and central governments making it exemplary for other semiarid regions like Marathawada and Vidarbha those that have comparable terrain, soil and aquifer characteristics. The comparative analysis of the movementapos;s success with pre-post analysis by considering monsoonal groundwater recharge during good rainfall spell of 1975-84 (pre) and 2004-09 (post) show almost a two-fold increase in the groundwater recharge during the similar monsoon years in Saurashtra. This temporal analysis enables to establish the impact of the collective efforts by people as well as the government for groundwater rejuvenation in Saurashtra. With availability of dependable irrigation, Saurashtra has also emerged as a major contributor to Gujarat stateapos;s agriculture growth which has normally been shadowed by other regions of the state making the state agriculture growth reachi

Piped distribution of irrigation water has helped in faster expansion of sub-minor distribution network of the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP). An ITP study across six minor canal commands though shows that majority of the intended beneficiaries continue to depend on surface-lift or ground water sources for irrigation. The defunct status of WUAs, responsible for managing operation and maintenance at sub-minor level, in most of these locations raises question on the efficacy of the present participatory model. Farmers are however arranging for irrigation through private initiatives and are able to access assured irrigation using the same canal water. Is it time we provide legitimacy to these initiatives to enhance utilization of the SSP water?

Indian agricultural communities are facing a crisis driven by, among other things, skewed terms of trade and farmers’ inability to deal with increasingly adverse climatic conditions. Because agriculture continues to be the primary source of livelihood for most of India’s population, governments at all levels are under pressure to find ways to help farmers. In western and peninsular India, where droughts are common, several state governments have vowed to make farming “drought-proof” through ambitious flagship programs. This case study reviews the experience of four such programs in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Telangana, and Rajasthan. Although the programs differ in approach, implementation style, and duration, all of them aim to shield farmers, particularly smallholders, from the misery imposed by droughts. Among these states, efforts in Gujarat appear to be the most mature; however, concerns regarding sustaining momentum, capacity building of communities, demand management, and establishing functional local governance remain. We use evidence gathered through field studies to draw lessons for designing effective drought-mitigation strategies through improved management of groundwater resources.

The Koshi Basin, spread across China, Nepal and India, is perceived as having high potential for hydropower and irrigation development, both seen as ways to promote economic development in the region. This paper quantifies and assesses the past and projected future spatial and temporal water balances in the Koshi Basin. Results show that precipitation and net water yield are lowest in the transmountain region and the Tibetan plateau. The values are highest in the mountain region, followed by the hills and Indo-Gangetic Plains. Approximately 65% of average annual precipitation is converted to flows, indicating high water availability. Actual evapotranspiration is highest in the Indo-Gangetic Plains region due to the presence of irrigated agriculture and a few forested mountain watersheds. As most of the water from the mountain and hill regions eventually flows down to the plains, the mountain and hill regions in Nepal are important for maintaining agriculture in the plains in both Nepal and India. Results from the flow analyses indicate the high temporal variability of flows in the basin. The frequent occurrences of both high- and low-flow events demonstrate the existing vulnerability of the region to both floods and droughts, leading to a very risk-prone livelihood system. Climate change projections show an increasing trend in precipitation and net water yield for most of the basin, except the transmountain region. Therefore, it is important to consider the climate change impacts on water resources in future planning.

Water availability for agriculture will become a growing constraint in areas already under environmental and social stress due to population growth, development, and climatic variability. This limits the potential for expanding irrigated areas and for sustainable intensification, and compromises the ability of smallholder farmers to cater to the increased demand for food. This chapter assesses the key global challenges to water availability and how increasing scarcity and competition for water resources are affecting agricultural productivity, especially that of smallholder producers in Asia and Africa. It further analyzes emerging water management practices that can be sustainably adapted to the needs of smallholder farmers. We provide evidence of the economic viability and potential to improve farmers’ income from such solutions. The opportunity for scaling up high-impact solutions is also assessed against available empirical evidence.

The Indus River Basin faces severe water quality degradation because of nutrient enrichment from human activities. Excessive nutrients in tributaries are transported to the river mouth, causing coastal eutrophication. This situation may worsen in the future because of population growth, economic development, and climate change. This study aims at a better understanding of the magnitude and sources of current (2010) and future (2050) river export of total dissolved nitrogen (TDN) by the Indus River at the sub-basin scale. To do this, we implemented the MARINA 1.0 model (Model to Assess River Inputs of Nutrients to seAs). The model inputs for human activities (e.g., agriculture, land use) were mainly from the GLOBIOM (Global Biosphere Management Model) and EPIC (Environmental Policy Integrated Model) models. Model inputs for hydrology were from the Community WATer Model (CWATM). For 2050, three scenarios combining Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs 1, 2 and 3) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs 2.6 and 6.0) were selected. A novelty of this study is the sub-basin analysis of future N export by the Indus River for SSPs and RCPs. Result shows that river export of TDN by the Indus River will increase by a factor of 1.6–2 between 2010 and 2050 under the three scenarios. N90% of the dissolved N exported by the Indus River is from midstream sub-basins. Human waste is expected to be the major source, and contributes by 66–70% to river export of TDN in 2050 depending on the scenarios. Another important source is agriculture, which contributes by 21–29% to dissolved inorganic N export in 2050. Thus a combined reduction in both diffuse and point sources in the midstream sub-basins can be effective to reduce coastal water pollution by nutrients at the river mouth of Indus.

Climate change is posing a serious challenge for developing countries like India. The agriculture sector is one of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change. In turn, it is making food security and livelihoods of smallholders, more vulnerable to climate change. This study adopted the IPCC’s integrated indicator approach for assessing the vulnerability of the agriculture sector to climate change in Assam and Odisha by means of creating a vulnerability index and by comparing the spatial profile of vulnerability across the districts of the two states. Several socio-economic and biophysical indicators were identified and categorized into 3 components of vulnerability: sensitivity, exposure and, adaptive capacity. Running PCA on these indicators generated weights. Since, Principal Component 1 explains the maximum variance in the dataset, the correlation of indicators with Principal Component 1 has been used for computing the composite climate vulnerability indices. The districts are ranked on the basis of their performance on indices based on 3 components of vulnerability and composite vulnerability. District-wise spatial vulnerability profile has been created to identify and prioritize the most vulnerable districts. The results of the study indicate that the most vulnerable districts of Assam are – Tinsukia, Karbi Anglong, and Dima Hasao; and that of Odisha are - Nabarangpur, Kandhamal, Mayurbhanj, Sundargarh, Malkangiri, Nuapada, Kalahandi, and Koraput. The predominant indicators contributing to vulnerability have been identified which suggest that vulnerability in Assam is more due to high exposure while in Odisha, it is largely attributed to low adaptive capacity and high sensitivity. There exists a large difference in the extent of vulnerability among the districts and there is a need to develop specific policy interventions to address climate change at the district level in order to reduce the vulnerability of smallholders and to increase the resilience of the agriculture sector to climate change.

Climate-smart villages mean implementing a portfolio of best locally suited climate-smart agricultural practices in an integrated manner to build resilience of the local community. Land and water interventions form a crucial part of a climate-smart agricultural practices portfolio, with water availability being the key limiting factor of crop growth. To aid in this decision-making process of prioritizing land and water interventions, a simple and robust spreadsheet tool based on a water balance is developed. The tool integrates and simulates impacts of land and water interventions on the water balance to determine their impact across climate-smart agricultural objectives of agricultural productivity, climate change adaptation and mitigation. The tool was implemented in two villages in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. The tool performs well in simulating village water balance and its impact on the yield of rainfed and irrigated crop areas. Results show that considerable differences exist within the portfolio of land and water interventions, with only a combination of supply, demand and moisture conservation practices being able to help achieve climate-smart agricultural objectives. In the best case scenario, yield can be increased by up to 10% and greenhouse gas emission intensity reduced up to 17%. Comparison with stakeholder perception analysis highlights the utility of this tool in providing additional quantitative information in the decision-making process.

The purpose of the module is to demonstrate how scientific information can make a big difference in proper understanding of the differences in WS impacts across projects and sites. The module presents scientific information in an easy-to-understand format. Concepts are explained and applied and implications discussed making the module highly practice oriented. Rich scientific information on case study sites is presented in detail to help visualize the case study characteristics clearly so that the learners can relate the information to sites they are familiar with. Toward the end of the module, learners will be exposed to a decision support tool that can be run on Microsoft Excel, which is designed to assist in water resource planning for watershed at the mesoscale. It can also be used for assessing changing land use and climate regimes within the watershed. The tools help in exploring recharge interventions, changes in cropping patterns, and irrigation practices.

The objective of this research is to develop a fuzzy-based groundwater sustainability index (FGSI) model to evaluate the sustainability of groundwater system at selected cities in Asian. The new Mamdani type fuzzy-based inference system known as FGSI was developed. It contains five components and twenty-four indicators, which covers five dimensions of sustainability, namely, environmental, social, economic, mutual trust, and institutional. The FGSI model offers a novel combination of indicators, which covers aspects of groundwater quality, quantity, and management. An attempt was made to develop a robust index for estimating the groundwater sustainability. The model was evaluated for selected cities in Asian with different difuzzification methods, and compared with the conventional method. The centroid defuzzification method produced well diversified results compared with other methods, including conventional method. The overall groundwater sustainability of Hyderabad of India was estimated as highly sustainable and, Lahore of Pakistan, Bangkok of Thailand, Ho Chi Minh City of Vietnam and Yangon City of Myanmar were estimated as moderately sustainable. The FGSI model may help to policy and decision makers to provide a reliable and resilient sustainable management system in the cities by identifying the indicators for the improvement.

Prioritising aviral dhara (uninterrupted flow) over nirmal dhara (unpolluted flow) can deliver quick outcomes in the Namami Gange Programme. Treating human, municipal and industrial waste released into the Ganga is a long-term project requiring vast resources and political energy, besides behavioural change on a mass scale. But, Ganga’s dry season flows can be quickly improved by basin-scale conjunctive management of the surface water and groundwater. Irrigation in the Ganga basin today depends on tubewells far more than canals. A multipronged protocol is outlined to manage the old canal network and new hydropower storages in order to maximise irrigation benefits and improve dry season river flows.

Collective farming has been suggested as a potentially useful approach for reducing inequality and transforming peasant agriculture. In collectives, farmers pool land, labor, irrigation infrastructure, agricultural inputs and harvest to overcome resource constraints and to increase their bargaining power. Employing a feminist political ecology lens, we reflect on the extent to which collective farming enables marginalized groups to engage in smallholder agriculture. We examine the establishment of 18 farmer collectives by an action research project in the Eastern Gangetic Plains, a region characterised by fragmented and small landholdings and a high rate of marginalised and landless farmers. We analyze ambivalances of collective farming practices with regard to (1) social relations across scales, (2) intersectionality and (3) emotional attachment. Our results in Saptari/ Eastern Terai in Nepal, Madhubani/Bihar, and Cooch Behar/West Bengal in India demonstrate how intra-household, group and community relations and emotional attachments to the family and neighbors mediate the redistribution of labor, land, produce and capital. We find that unequal gender relations, intersected by class, age, ethnicity and caste, are reproduced in collective action, land tenure and water management, and argue that a critical feminist perspective can support a more reflective and relational understanding of collective farming processes. Our analysis demonstrates that feminist political ecology can complement commons studies by providing meaningful insights on ambivalences around approaches such as collective farming.

Floods account for a majority of disasters, especially in South Asia, where they affect 27 million people annually, causing economic losses of over US$1 billion. Climate change threatens to exacerbate these risks. Risk transfer mechanisms, such as weather index insurance (WII) may help buffer farmers against these hazards. However, WII programs struggle to attract the clients most in need of protection, including marginalized women and men. This risks re-enforcing existing inequalities and missing opportunities to promote pro-poor and gender-sensitive development. Key questions, therefore, include what factors constrain access to WIIs amongst heterogeneous communities, and how these can be addressed. This paper contributes to that end through primary data from two WII case studies (one in India, the other in Bangladesh) that identify contextual socio-economic and structural barriers to accessing WII, and strategies to overcome these. More significantly, this paper synthesizes the case study findings and those from a review of the literature on other WII initiatives into a framework to promote a systematic approach to address these challenges: an important step forward in moving from problem analysis to remedial action. The framework highlights actions across WII product design, implementation and post-implementation, to minimize risks of social exclusion in future WII schemes.

Natural wetlands are green infrastructure systems that are energy-efficient for wastewater treatment and can be found in diverse geo-environmental settings around the world. Their structure and functions, which defines the treatment efficiencies are highly varied. Wetlands over shallow bedrock and geological lineaments (weak zones) have been known to contribute to groundwater contamination. However, not many studies have been performed to understand the structure in different geological settings to identify the efficiency determining factors. Therefore, it is important to investigate the geological suitability of the natural wetlands. We examined wastewater fed natural wetlands in diverse geological settings aiming at studying the depth, geo-stability, bio-chemical interactions, and hydrogeological attributes that improve the wastewater quality, within the Musi River basin, India. The integrated geophysical scans encompassing electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), hydrogeological test, bathymetric study and hydro-chemical analysis were carried out to explore the physical structure and hydro-dynamic processes in the wetlands. ERT investigations showed that, the depth to bedrock up to 20–25 m devoid of geo-fractures (lineaments) indicated the effective depth of saturated zone as a passable scope for potential bio-chemical interactions, implying the proportionality of the deep seated (deep bedrock) wetland to the pollutant removal efficiency. The lower order of electrical resistivity range 10–35 Om and hydraulic conductivity 2.938 md-1 acquired for saturated weathered zone were found catalyzing the bioremediation, sedimentation, adsorption, redox reactions and ion exchange processes. It caused the deep seated wetland removing nitrate 194.34 kgd-1 (97.18%); sulphate 333.75 kgd-1 (77.70%); phosphate 9.66 kgd-1 (82.53%); microbes 99.99%, BOD 80%, and COD 80% load with discharge 1408 m3d-1 of treated wastewater. Further, the strategies for designating the natural wetlands as wastewater treatment systems are also discussed in this paper.

In the Ganges basin, 8268.6 km2 of irrigation command area is waterlogged following monsoon rains. In this study, vertical drain (VD) (L × D, 7 × 1 m) filled with drainage gravel (6.5 m) and coarse sand (0.5 m) is installed in farmer’s agricultural field to minimize the duration of seasonal waterlogging and tested in Mukundpur village, Vaishalli District, Bihar, India. At the experimental site, inundation of rainfall and runoff from surrounding areas along with the seepage from an earthen canal start in September and remain till February, every year which prevents timely planting of wheat in November-end/December. Drainage due to percolation and recharge to groundwater is constrained by 6.4-m thick clay layer, below 0.5-m root-zone, and the groundwater level, which rises to the surface level. VDs were installed to provide a path and allow inundated water to recharge the aquifer, as groundwater level recedes. Groundwater level drop, floodwater infiltration rate, groundwater discharge, and VD capability were estimated through field data. Results show that VDs connected the floodwater to groundwater and transferred the floodwater to the aquifer when groundwater level started to recede. The site was fully drained by the end of December, permitting farmers to plant wheat in January providing cool nights at germination, thus increasing yields.

Participatory groundwater management is increasingly being recognised for its ability to address the challenges of equity, efficiency and sustainability. It can particularly help with effective engagement at the grassroots level for monitoring, recharging and managing the groundwater as a common pool resource. The main aim of this article is to discuss the training and management process used and the lessons learnt from a participatory groundwater management project, titled Managing Aquifer Recharge and Sustainable Groundwater Use through Village-level Intervention (MARVI). In this project, researchers, rural development facilitators and local villagers worked together to initiate participatory groundwater monitoring in 11 villages from the Dharta and Meghraj watersheds in Rajasthan and Gujarat, India. The study involved educating villagers through an intensive program of capacity building, wherein the villagers who participated in the program were called Bhujal Jaankars (BJs), a Hindi word meaning ‘groundwater informed’. The BJs were trained in their local settings through relevant theory and practical exercises, so that they could perform a geo-hydrological evaluation of their area, monitor groundwater and share their findings and experiences with their village community. The study has highlighted that with a well-designed program of capacity building and on-going support through training and nurturing, BJs can play an important role in monitoring watertable depth and other data for estimating groundwater recharge, leading to a sharing of the groundwater information with the local village community to influence the sustainable use of groundwater. Overall they can act as local champions for groundwater futures. Further, this study has demonstrated that BJ capacity building can help to provide a scientific basis for village level groundwater dialogue and assist village communities and other stakeholders to improve their decision making regarding groundwater use, crop selection, agronomy, recharge strategies and other aspects of sustainable groundwater management. Although the BJ program has been successful and BJs can act as a valuable interface between local communities and other stakeholders managed aquifer recharge activities, there still exists some challenges to the BJ programme, such as the need for mechanisms and funding sources that will sustain the BJs over the longer term; wider acceptance of BJs among scientific communities and policy makers; and the acceptance of the role and involvements of BJs in natural resources management programs of the State and Central governments in India.

The Union Budget 2018 announced the Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan, a scheme to replace diesel pumps and grid-connected electric tube wells for irrigation with solar irrigation pumps, including a buy-back arrangement for farmers’ surplus solar energy at a remunerative price. KUSUM can be a game changer as it can check groundwater over-exploitation, offer farmers uninterrupted daytime power supply, reduce the carbon footprint of agriculture, curtail the farm power subsidy burden, and provide a new source of risk-free income for farmers.

Groundwater use in India, and many developing countries, is linked to livelihood and well-being of village communities. It is, therefore, important to characterise groundwater behaviour and resilience and identify strategies that will help to improve the sustainability of groundwater supplies. The concept of Standardised Precipitation Index (SPI) has been widely used for analysing rainfall drought. In this study, we adapt SPI to understand watertable fluctuations and assess resilience of groundwater supplies vis--vis rainfall variability from one year to the next. The modified SPI, called Groundwater Resilience Index (GRI), represents a normalized continuous watertable elevation variability function. The index is applied to two districts, viz., Udaipur and Aravalli in Rajasthan and Gujarat, India, respectively, to assess its usefulness. To evaluate the association of rainfall variability with groundwater depth fluctuation, SPI was also calculated. The study showed that GRI varies less than SPI, indicating that groundwater availability is less variable than the rainfall in both districts. This means that groundwater increases reliability of water supply for irrigation in both districts. The estimated SPI and GRI at 6-month intervals for the study period show that even though the groundwater is not stressed (normal condition in 75% of the months observed), there is variation in resilience of the aquifer system to drought and extreme events. Overall, the study indicated that the proposed GRI can be a useful tool for understanding watertable fluctuations and assessing groundwater resilience, especially to prioritise areas for groundwater recharge when funds for recharge works are limited.

Like rest of Southern India, tanks in Tamil Nadu also suffered massive deterioration as irrigation moved towards being more atomistic and less community-managed. Tank institutions declined and what remained of these irrigation tanks evolved into mostly percolation tanks. In 2017, in the face one the biggest droughts affecting the state, Tamil Nadu government announced Kudimaramathu scheme to revive the age-old practice of community participation in tank repair and management. The program has tried to bring farmers together to form WUAs to take up activities for tank rehabilitation but like many other programs in the country, these institutions appear to exist only on paper with the program being driven primarily by local PWD officers and contractors. This paper brings insights from thirty tanks under rehabilitation in seven districts of the state which were taken up under this scheme and were studied through case study approach. The study attempts to uncover the factors which led to better implementation in some tanks compared to others. The lessons derived from these tanks can form the basis for effective programs on tank rehabilitation in future, especially those which aim at making them participatory. The paper reinforces the need for empowering WUAs rather than just creating them, if tank management is to be made long-lasting.

Wastewater irrigation is a common livelihood practice in many parts of the developing world. With the continuous irrigation supply, groundwater systems in these regions perceive adverse impacts due to inadequate infrastructure to treat the wastewater. The current study area, Musi River irrigation system, is one such case study located in the peri-urban Hyderabad of South India. The Musi River water, which is used for irrigation, is composed of untreated and secondary treated wastewater from Hyderabad city. Kachiwani Singaram micro-watershed in the peri-urban Hyderabad is practicing wastewater irrigation for the last 40 years. The current quality of (untreated) wastewater used for irrigation is expected to have adverse impacts on the local aquifers, but detailed investigations are lacking. To elucidate the groundwater quality dynamics and seasonality of the wastewater irrigation impacts on the peri-urban agricultural system, we analyzed the groundwater quality on a monthly basis for one hydrological year in the wastewater and groundwater irrigated areas, which exist next to each other. The spatio-temporal variability of groundwater quality in the watershed was analyzed with respect to wastewater irrigation and seasonality using multivariate statistical analysis, multi-way modeling and self-organizing maps. This study indicates the significance of combining various statistical techniques for detailed evaluation of the groundwater processes in a wastewater irrigated agricultural system. The results suggest that concentrations of the major ionic substances increase after the monsoon season, especially in wastewater irrigated areas. Multi-way modeling identified the major polluted groundwaters to come from the wastewater irrigated parts of the watershed. Clusters of chemical variables identified by using self-organizing maps indicate that groundwater pollution is highly impacted by mineral interactions and long-term wastewater irrigation. The study recommends regular monitoring of water resources and development of sustainable management strategies to mitigate the aquifer pollution in wastewater irrigation systems.

Assessment of specific yields is important for effective groundwater management in semi-arid hardrock aquifers, especially in India with its unsustainable groundwater usage rates. The Dharta watershed in the Udaipur district of Rajasthan is one such hardrock area in India where the groundwater extraction rate is a concern. In this study, we use groundwater balance analysis to estimate the specific yield (Sy) based on crop irrigation water use and changes in water table depths, during the irrigation season, to develop an understanding of the volume of groundwater recharge from pre and post monsoon water table depths and an understanding of the spatial and temporal changes in estimates of specific yield in the study area. The analysis used here estimates values at village scale (average area 3.65 km2) and is a technique compatible with the farmers monitoring of groundwater levels to facilitate local cooperative groundwater management. Five villages in the Dharta watershed in Rajasthan were selected and 50 wells per village were monitored for water table depth, at weekly intervals, over a two-year period. This resulted in a total of 250 wells in the study area and the monitoring was carried out by local farmer volunteers - called Bhujal Jankaars (BJs), a Hindi word meaning ‘groundwater informed.’ Crop area coverage (with a total of 40 crops) was examined for two years in the study area. Estimates of Sy in the five villages were between 1.4 and 8%, resulting in values comparable with previous studies. The watershed area-weighted average Sy was 3.8%. The method used in this study enabled estimates of recharge without needing a calibrated groundwater model in an area with sparse information on aquifer hydraulic characteristics and unreliable digital elevation maps.

The residents of the Ganges and Mekong River deltas face serious challenges from rising sea levels, saltwater intrusion, pollution from upstream sources, growing populations, and infrastructure that no longer works as planned. In both deltas, scientists working for nearly two decades with communities, local governments and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have demonstrated the potential to overcome these challenges and substantially improve people’s livelihoods. There are cost-effective solutions to improving the totality of ecosystem services and market opportunities for young women and men.

Drip irrigation in India has expanded slowly. One reason cited is the high capital costs facing the smallholder-dominated agricultural sector. Governments have provided capital subsidies in response. This study finds that, rather than improving access to drip, the subsidy system holds the technology back, because its technical requirements, highly bureaucratic processes and pricing incentives turn many drip providers into rent-seeking agents rather than service providers to farmers, leading to price increases of 40% or more. If capital costs are truly the constraint on drip expansion in India, alternative models to address them are available.

Climate induced extreme events such as floods and droughts are often disastrous in incidences and affects Indian economy often. Low per capita surface water storage (225 m3/capita1), few sites for additional storages facilities and depleting groundwater aquifers reduce the resilience of the communities to alleviate the day-to-day short age and larger seasonal shocks. India has a long history of storing and recharging runoff waters through community participation. Ongoing such programs are focused on drought-prone or socio-economically weak areas and exclude the flood prone zones. The present study aims to improve the groundwater resources availability through diverting flows from rivers or canals at times when these flows pose flood risk and recharging the groundwater through suitable artificial recharge structures. This method addresses the issue of groundwater depletion as well as reducing the flood risks. A geo-hydrological analysis in spatial platform using data available in public domain and detailed ground survey, a site was identified in Jiwai Jadid village of Milk Block of Rampur district of Uttar Pradesh, India. A community owned pond was retrofitted with recharge wells and associated infrastructure to draw excess monsoon water from a nearby flood-prone river. The preliminary results show a positive impact on groundwater table and water quality. However, to achieve the full benefit of the method it is required to implement it in larger scale. Ongoing government programs that are focused on livelihood improvement and natural resources management are the best options to scale up such effect in regional scale.

The safe recovery of nutrients from our waste streams allows us to address the challenges of waste management and soil nutrient depletion conjointly. Commercialization of waste-based organic fertilizers such as FortiferTM (fecal sludge-based co-compost) has the potential to generate significant benefits for developing economies via cost recovery for the sanitation sector and the provision of an alternative agricultural input for smallholder farmers. To guide future FortiferTM businesses, this report presents examples of detailed market assessments, based on farmers’ perceptions, attitudes and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for a pelletized and non-pelletized FortiferTM co-compost. The research was conducted in the Greater Accra and Western regions in Ghana, and in and around Kampala (Uganda), Bangalore (India), Hanoi (Vietnam), and Kurunegala (Sri Lanka). Cross-country analyses helped to understand the effects of market drivers and, where possible, capture lessons learned for knowledge sharing.

Private investments in groundwater have emerged as the main pathway through which smallholder farmers in India access irrigation. This paper discusses the role of groundwater in agrarian growth in West Bengal, India. It finds that agricultural growth in the state has stagnated since mid-1990s, after an initial period of growth in the 1980s and early 1990s. We hypothesize that this stagnation was a direct result of slowdown in growth in groundwater irrigation. The reason for this slowdown was, in turn, government policies related to groundwater and electricity. The paper then goes on to discuss the Groundwater Act of 2005 as well as electrification policies of the government of West Bengal and locates these policies within the broader backdrop of groundwater resource endowments in the state. By juxtaposing groundwater policies and resource realities, the paper questions the relevance of current regulations and suggests some policy alternatives - alternatives that are likely to propel the state and its smallholder farmers on a path of higher agricultural growth.

The Ganges basin faces considerable spatial and temporal imbalance between water demand and availability. Lack of water storage infrastructure has led to this mismatch, wherein there are limited options to store flood water during the wet season and limited groundwater and surface water resources during the dry season. In this current study, a semi-coupled hydrological modeling framework is used to test scenarios that can help bridge this imbalance. A hydrological model (SWAT), groundwater model (MODFLOW) and flood inundation model (HEC-RAS) were applied to the Ramganga basin in India (*19,000 km2) to understand the baseline hydrologic regime and to test scenarios with distributed managed aquifer recharge (MAR) interventions, which when applied to at the basin scale to co-address flooding and groundwater depletion has come to be known as Underground Taming of Floods for Irrigation. The scenarios with MAR, which used available basin runoff to recharge groundwater, yielded favorable results in flood reduction and groundwater level improvement throughout the sub-basin. Groundwater levels improved within 5 years of introducing MAR, resulting in a groundwater elevation increase of up to 7 mwhen compared to baseline conditions. The HEC-RAS model indicated that a 20% reduction in basin outflow converted a 15-year flood peak to an 8-year flood peak, a 5-year peak to 3 years and a 2-year peak to 1 year. In addition, this resulted in a 10% reduction in the inundated area in all return periods tested. Therefore, distributed MAR practices can be effective in reducing the negative impacts from larger return period floods and increasing the groundwater levels.

A merging procedure is applied to five daily rainfall estimates achieved via SM2RAIN applied to the soil moisture products obtained by the Advanced SCATterometer, the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2, the Soil Moisture Active and Passive mission, the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission and backscattering observations of RapidScat. The precipitation estimates are evaluated against dense ground networks in the period ranging from April to December, 2015, in India and in Italy, at 0.25/daily spatial/temporal resolution.; The merged product derived by combining the different SM2RAIN rainfall products shows better results in term of statistical and categorical metrics with respect to the use of the single products. A good agreement with reference to ground observations is obtained, with median correlations equal to 0.65 and 0.77 in India and in Italy, respectively. The merged dataset is found to slightly outperform those of the IMERG product of the Global Precipitation Measurement mission underlying the large potential of the proposed approach.

With current rates of land degradation reaching ten to twelve million ha per year, there is an urgent need to scale up and out successful, profitable and resource-efficient sustainable land management practices to maintain the health and resilience of the land that humans depend on. As much as 500 million out of two billion ha of degraded land, mainly in developing countries, have restoration potential, offering an immediate target for restoration and rehabilitation initiatives.1 In the past, piecemeal approaches to achieving sustainable land management have had limited impact. To achieve the ambitious goals of alleviating poverty, securing food and water supplies, and protecting the natural resource base, we need to recognize the inter-connectedness of the factors driving land degradation, so that solutions can be taken to scale, transforming management practices for millions of land users. An analysis of the critical barriers and incentives to achieve scaling up suggests that the most appropriate options should be selected through the involvement of stakeholders at all levels, from local to national and international. New incentives for land managers as well as the public and private sectors are required to achieve a land degradation-neutral world.

Monitoring the changes in forest-cover and understanding the dynamics of the forest is becoming increasingly important for the sustainable management of forest ecosystems. This paper uses temporal MODIS Vegetation Continuous Field (MODIS-VCF) to monitor the tree cover change in the Indian region over a period of 6 years (2000–2005). Pixel-based linear regression model is developed to identify rate of deforestation and fragmentation at landscape level. The regression parameters viz., slope, offset and variance are used to identify threshold between forest and non-forest classes. The classification algorithm resulted into change area, no change area, positive change and negative changes. MODIS-VCF raw product of 2005 was validated using the field data and showed a coefficient of determination (R2 = 0.85) between percent tree cover and individual plot wise canopy cover information. The results were overlaid with UNEP protected area boundary. On a long-term basis, the forest cover change was monitored using medium spatial resolution (Landsat and IRS) satellite data to identify the rate of deforestation and fragmentation at landscape level. The developed approach is efficient and effective for regional monitoring of forest cover change. It could be automated for regular usage and monitoring.

Groundwater samples were collected from 44 wells in the Ramganga Sub-Basin (RSB), India, and analysed for major ions, nutrients and trace metals. The primary goal of this study is to evaluate the hydrochemistry and to identify the geochemical processes that govern the water chemistry in the shallow and deep tube wells in the study area using geochemical methods. The knowledge of changes in hydrochemistry of the aquifers is important for both groundwater recharge and use in the region. This study found that there are substantial differences of water chemistry between shallow and deep wells. In the shallow wells, the average concentrations of total dissolved solid (TDS), Na, K, Ca, Mg, HCO3, Cl, SO4, NO3, PO4, F, Cu, Mn, Fe and Cr are twofold higher than the deep wells. The concentrations of dissolved silica in the groundwater do not vary with the depth, which implies that the variation in the water chemistry is not due to mineral dissolution alone. Major ion ratios and saturation indices suggest that the water chemistry is predominantly controlled by dissolution of carbonate minerals, silicate weathering and ion exchange reactions. Thermodynamic evaluation (ion activity ratios and stability filed diagrams) indicates that the kaolinite and gibbsite controlled the water chemistry in the both shallow and deep wells. In addition, the groundwater chemistry in the shallow wells is affected by the vertical infiltration of contaminated water from surface contamination sources and nitrification process. In the deep wells, absence of NO3 and low concentrations of Cl, SO4, PO4 and F imply the role of regional flow and denitrification in the groundwater. Results concluded that proper management plan is necessary to protect the shallow aquifer in the RSB since shallow aquifer pumping is less expensive than the deeper one.

With India emerging as the world’s largest groundwater irrigator, marginal farmers and tenants in many parts have come to depend on informal water markets for irrigation. Power subsidies have grown these markets and made them pro-poor, but are also responsible for groundwater depletion, and for financial troubles of electricity distribution companies of India or DISCOMs. Gujarat has successfully reduced subsidies by rationing farm power supply, and West Bengal has done so by charging farmers commercial power tariff on metered consumption. Subsidy reforms have hit poor farmers and tenants hard in both the states. Gujarat has tried to support the poor, with some success, by prioritising them in allocating new tube well connections. We argue that West Bengal too can support its poor by tweaking its farm power pricing formula to turn a sellers’ water market into a buyers’ one.

Using groundwater for agricultural production has the potential to build resilience in food insecure regions of the world. Use of groundwater can boost agricultural production, improve rural incomes and strengthen farmers’ ability to withstand climate shocks and water variability. However, for groundwater to contribute to sustainable intensification of agriculture, it is essential to know where to invest in groundwater development and how to sustainably manage groundwater resources. WLE has identified potentially usable groundwater resources in Africa, supported important policy changes to enhance the sustainable use of groundwater in eastern India, and has developed maps and new tools that can be used to implement new policies supporting sustainable use of groundwater.

This Research Report presents the first comprehensive overview of the multiple climate hazard risks, and the proposed key issues and challenges facing the South Asian region. This report suggests methods for mapping such risks and estimating their impacts on people and agriculture in South Asia. Regional, country-wise and sub-national assessment of five climate-related risks – floods, droughts, extreme rainfall, extreme temperature and sea-level rise – is carried out. The approach involves overlaying climate hazard, sensitivity and adaptive capacity maps, and follows the vulnerability assessment framework of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). A combined index based on hazard, exposure and adaptive capacity is introduced to identify areas susceptible to extreme risk. There is a lack of a systematic and comprehensive risk assessment capturing multiple climate hazards for the entire South Asian region and the need for a common framework for risk assessment. While this approach is well grounded in theories and integration of various spatial data including remote sensing data to derive hazard information, there is a clear need for linking additional elements from the ground at a finer scale among various sectors in developing comprehensive risk assessment information for a disaster risk management plan and promoting risk financing strategies.

Nutrients and water found in domestic treated wastewater are valuable and can be reutilized in urban agriculture as a potential strategy to provide communities with access to fresh produce. In this paper, this proposition is examined by conducting a field study in the rapidly developing city of Hyderabad, India. Urban agriculture trade-offs in water use, energy use and GHG emissions, nutrient uptake, and crop pathogen quality are evaluated, and irrigation waters of varying qualities (treated wastewater, versus untreated water and groundwater) are compared. The results are counter-intuitive, and illustrate potential synergies and key constraints relating to the food–energy–water–health (FEW–health) nexus in developing cities. First, when the impact of GHG emissions from untreated wastewater diluted in surface streams is compared with the life cycle assessment of wastewater treatment with reuse in agriculture, the treatment-plus-reuse case yields a 33% reduction in life cycle system-wide GHG emissions. Second, despite water cycling benefits in urban agriculture, only lt;1% of the nutrients are able to be captured in urban agriculture, limited by the small proportion of effluent divertible to urban agriculture due to land constraints. Thus, water treatment plus reuse in urban farms can enhance GHG mitigation and also directly save groundwater; however, very large amounts of land are needed to extract nutrients from dilute effluents. Third, although energy use for wastewater treatment results in pathogen indicator organism concentrations in irrigation water to be reduced by 99.9% (three orders of magnitude) compared to the untreated case, crop pathogen content was reduced by much less, largely due to environmental contamination and farmer behavior and harvesting practices. The study uncovers key physical, environmental, and behavioral factors that constrain benefits achievable at the FEW-health nexus in urban areas.

Storing excess rainwater underground can become key in mitigating the frequency and magnitude of flood events. In this context, assessment of depleted groundwater storage that can be refilled in water surplus periods is imperative. The study uses Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data to identify variations in groundwater storage in the monsoonal Ramganga River basin (tributary of the Ganges, with an area of 32,753 km2) in India, over the nine-year period of 2002–2010. Results indicate that basin groundwater storage is depleting at the rate of 1.6 bill. m3 yr 1 . This depleted aquifer volume can be used to store floodwater effectively – up to 76% of the rainfall on average across the Ramganga with a maximum of 94% in parts of the basin. However, the major management challenge is to find and introduce technical and policy interventions to augment recharge rates to capture excess water, at required scales.

Recovering nutrients, water and energy from domestic waste streams, including wastewater and faecal sludge, is slowly gaining momentum in low-income countries. Resource recovery and reuse (RRR) offers value beyond environmental benefits through cost recovery. An expected game changer in sanitation service provision is a business model where benefits accrued via RRR can support upstream sanitation services despite the multitude of private and public stakeholders involved from waste collection to treatment. This paper shows options of how resource recovery and reuse can be an incentive for the sustainable sanitation service chain, by recovering costs where revenue can feed back internally or using generated revenues from reuse to fill financial gaps across the service chain to complement other supporting mechanisms for making waste management more attractive.

Remote sensing and GIS tools have broadly helped hydrogeologists to delineate the groundwater prospective zones for watershed development and management. The origin, movement and existence of groundwater depends on several factors such as slope, drainage density, land use, geology, lineament density and geomorphology. Based on these, the mapping and identification of groundwater potential zones were carried out in a part of Nalgonda district, Telangana, India. The regions were categorised as high, moderate and low groundwater potential, and they were validated with the groundwater levels and yield of wells located in the corresponding zones. Extensive possibility for watershed development is possible in 41 % of the total 724 km2 and 46 % of the area offers moderate options. Any groundwater management project implemented in these favourable areas will bring maximum benefit. Similar studies should be considered necessary before designing a water resource development activity as it will reduce the cost on detailed field visits which are time-consuming.

Runoff generated in the monsoon months in the upstream parts of the Ganges River basin (GRB) contributes substantially to downstream floods, while water shortages in the dry months affect agricultural production in the basin. This paper examines the potential for subsurface storage (SSS) in the Ganges basin to mitigate floods in the downstream areas and increase the availability of water during drier months. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is used to estimate “sub-basin” water availability. The water availability estimated is then compared with the sub-basinwise unmet water demand for agriculture. Hydrological analysis reveals that some of the unmet water demand in the subbasin can be met provided it is possible to capture the runoff in sub-surface storage during the monsoon season (June to September). Some of the groundwater recharge is returned to the stream as baseflow and has the potential to increase dry season river flows. To examine the impacts of groundwater recharge on flood inundation and flows in the dry season (October to May), two groundwater recharge scenarios are tested in the Ramganga sub-basin. Increasing groundwater recharge by 35 and 65 % of the current level would increase the baseflow during the dry season by 1.46 billion m3 (34.5 % of the baseline) and 3.01 billion m3 (71.3 % of the baseline), respectively. Analysis of pumping scenarios indicates that 80 000 to 112 000 ha of additional wheat area can be irrigated in the Ramganga sub-basin by additional SSS without reducing the current baseflow volumes. Augmenting SSS reduces the peak flow and flood inundated areas in Ramganga (by up to 13.0 % for the 65 % scenario compared to the baseline), indicating the effectiveness of SSS in reducing areas inundated under floods in the sub-basin. However, this may not be sufficient to effectively control the flood in the downstream areas of the GRB, such as in the state of Bihar (prone to floods), which receives a total flow of 277 billion m3 from upstream sub-basins.

The overall measure of farm-level technical efficiency is generally used to derive recommendations for the use of individual inputs. In this paper, joint estimation is made of technical and individual input-use (e.g. irrigation water productivity) efficiencies. This indicates that overall technical efficiency is not an indication of the efficiency level of all the individual inputs used. This is because the efficiency of individual inputs may vary and suggests that greater effort should be made to improve such efficiencies in comparison with overall technical efficiency. The model is applied to rice production in four tank-irrigated districts in Tamil Nadu, India, which is one of the most important tank-irrigated areas in India. The average technical efficiency is 62.8%, which indicates that in order to achieve the present level of production, 62.8% of the current level of input resources is sufficient. Average irrigation water productivity is estimated at ~34%, indicating that current output levels could be achieved with 66% less irrigation water. These findings also suggest the need for improvements in crop and water productivity. Thus, the paper makes a contribution in the form of a methodology development for possible adoption in future irrigation water productivity studies.

Since independence, India has emerged as the world’s largest groundwater economy, with annual groundwater use increasing from less than 50 BCM in the 1950s to over 230 BCM today. While this groundwater boom has been the bedrock of India’s agricultural growth, it has also created formidable challenges in groundwater governance. Meeting the challenge of water security in the face of hydro-climatic change requires a paradigm shift in our official thinking about groundwater governance. Although the Central Ground Water Board is the custodian of the nation’s groundwater resource, in reality, multiple agencies in public and private sectors have emerged as major players in India’s groundwater economy. This paper reviews international experience in groundwater governance and argues for greater synergy and coordination among various stakeholders group to improve productivity, equity and ecological sustainability of India’s groundwater economy.

The Eastern Gangetic Plains of South Asia represents a peripheral region far from the centers of global capitalist production, and this is all the more apparent in Mithilanchal, a cultural domain spanning the Nepal/Bihar border. The agrarian structure can be considered ‘semi-feudal’ in character, dominated by landlordism and usury, and backed up by political and ideological processes. Paradoxically, Mithilanchal is also deeply integrated into the global capitalist market and represents a surplus labor pool for the urban centers of Western India as well as the Persian Gulf in a classic articulation between pre-capitalist and capitalist modes of production. A review of the changes in the agrarian structure over recent decades in the context of globalisation, out-migration and climate stress, shows that while landlordism remains entrenched, the relationship between the marginal and tenant farmer majority and the landed classes has changed, with the breakdown of ideological ties and reduced dependence on single landlords. The paper thus ends on a positive note, as the contemporary juncture represents an opportune moment for new avenues of political mobilization among the peasantry.

The satellite radar altimetry datasets are now extensively used for continental water monitoring although it was primarily designed for oceanic surface and ice cap studies. Water level estimated from satellite altimetry can help to assess many hydrological parameters like river discharge and reservoir volume. These parameters can be employed for calibration and validation purposes of hydrological and hydrodynamic models, rating curve (stage-discharge relationship) generation, near real-time flood forecasting, reservoir operations and transboundary water related issues. Satellite with Argos and AltiKa (SARAL/AltiKa), a joint venture of Indian Space Research Organisation and Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales, is one of the pioneer missions in the history of satellite radar altimetry. It is first high-frequency (Ka-band, 35.75 GHz) mission with the highest sampling rate (40 Hz). The applications of radar altimetry to inland hydrology have been significantly increased in recent years in India. Major studies have been carried out in Ganga, Brahmaputra, Tapi and Godavari river basins with AltiKa data. AltiKa datasets have been successfully used for retrieving water level in reservoir and river, estimating river discharge and calculating reservoir sedimentation. Considering the stress on India’s fresh water resources and the importance of SARAL/AltiKa mission, this work was carried out. The present review paper may be helpful to understand the working principle of altimetry, altimetry waveform, waveform retracking methods, water stage, river discharge and changes in reservoir’s water storage calculation, and the status of altimetry applications to inland hydrology, specifically solicitation of SARAL/AltiKa in the Indian context.

Northern Bihar is one of the major flood prone region in India affecting thousands of human lives and livelihoods during the recurrent floods occurring due to the monsoonal rains. While it is impossible to prevent the occurrence of extreme flood events, disaster planning can help in mitigating its detrimental effects. Monitoring flood extent using satellite observations just after the flood disasters is a core component of rapid emergency response process, which enables the emergency rescue teams to prioritize their efforts in critical areas to save lives and protect health, in addition to providing near real-time flooding information to the decision makers and planners. The main objective of this study is to demonstrate the utility of less data intensive, but equally robust hydrodynamic models to develop flood extent maps in conjunction with freely available remote sensing imageries at different scales. MODIS TERRA satellite data was used to map flood extent from 2001 to 2016 for entire Bihar. Two hydraulic models namely FLDPLN and RRI applied for the Bagmathi basin to evaluate our objectives. Both these models are of varying complexity but generate flood extent patterns with minimum amount of input data. The proposed approach is suited for mapping flood extents to provide an input information in near real time (h) when there is no availability to detailed hydraulic models and satellite datasets. Flood inundation extents from FLDPLN and RRI models were validated with Landsat-7 and MODIS TERRA derived flood extents for model performance. The results show acceptable spatial agreement between model predicted and Landsat-7 observed flood extents, denoting the utility of these tools for flood mapping application in data scarce environments.

Anand, the Gujarat town that gave India its dairy cooperative movement, has now spawned in Dhundi village the world’s fi rst solar cooperative that produces Solar Power as a Remunerative Crop. When compared to other models promoting solar irrigation in the country, the SPaRC model, which has successfully completed one year in Dhundi, offers multiple benefi ts across-the-board: it will control groundwater overexploitation, reduce the subsidy burden on DISCOMs, curtail carbon footprint of agriculture, and help double farmer incomes.

Most cities in developing countries fail to treat their wastewater comprehensively. Consequently, farmers downstream use poor-quality water for irrigation. This practice implies risks for farmers, consumers and the environment. Conversely, this water supply supports the livelihood of these farmers and other stakeholders along the value chains. Linking safer options for wastewater management with irrigation could therefore be a win–win solution: removing the risks for society and maintaining the bene ts for farmers. However, in developing countries, the high investment costs for the required treatment are problematic and the willingness of farmers to pay for the water (cost recovery) is often questionable. Using a choice experiment, this paper gives insight into farmers’ preferences for wastewater use scenarios, quantifying their willingness to pay. The case study is Hyderabad, India. Farmers there prefer water treatment and are prepared to pay a surplus for this. Considering the costrecovery challenge, this information could be valuable for planning small on site wastewater treatment systems.

This paper serves international water con ict resolution efforts by examining the ways that states contest hegemonic transboundary water arrangements. The conceptual framework of dynamic transboundary water interaction that it presents integrates theories about change and counter-hegemony to ascertain coercive, leverage, and liberating mechanisms through which contest and transformation of an arrangement occur. While the mechanisms can be active through sociopolitical processes either of compliance or of contest of the arrangement, most transboundary water interaction is found to contain elements of both. The role of power asymmetry is interpreted through classi cation of intervention strategies that seek to either in uence or challenge the arrangements. Coexisting contest and compliance serve to explain in part the stasis on the Jordan and Ganges rivers (where the non-hegemons have in effect consented to the arrangement), as well as the changes on the Tigris and Mekong rivers, and even more rapid changes on the Amu Darya and Nile rivers (where the non-hegemons have confronted power asymmetry through in uence and challenge). The framework also stresses how transboundary water events that may appear isolated are more accurately read within the many sociopolitical processes and arrangements they are shaped by. By clarifying the typically murky dynamics of interstate relations over transboundary waters, furthermore, the framework exposes a new suite of entry points for hydro-diplomatic initiatives.

Energy efficient wastewater treatment systems are the current environmental concerns which prompted for the applications of natural wetlands as efficient systems at urban areas. However, a detailed investigation is highly desired to determine the efficiency determining factors relevant to structure and functions of natural wetlands for enhanced wastewater treatment. In view of this the wastewater fed natural wetland is examined by hydro-geophysical means, to decipher i) the effective depth of physico-chemical and microbial reactions, ii) the saturated zone thickness, and iii) hydrogeological attributes enhancing the wastewater quality at Hyderabad city, India. The wetland has been scanned using electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) to decipher its physical structure, and hydrogeological and biogeochemical investigations are performed to understand the dynamics. The low electrical resistivity ( =10.5-34.0 O-m) and moderate hydraulic conductivity (K=2.938 m/d) acquired for saturated zone (10–15 m depth), are found the wastewater enhancing parameters in the wetlands. Geophysically derived laterally constrained inversion (LCI) models explore the maximum saturated zone of wetland up to 25 m as an effective depth for pollutant removal mechanisms. It implies the proportionality between depth to bed rock (confining layer) and wetland efficiency. Further, the bio-geochemical scanning determines the bioremediation, sedimentation, adsorption, redox reactions and ion exchange processes as wetland functions for removing nutrients (77-97%), BOD (78%), COD (76%), and microbes (99.5-99.9%) load with the discharge Q=1812 m3d-1 of treated wastewater. Further, the wetland efficiency integrated with engineered interventions help develop various NTS models with different application scenarios, that are i) constructed wetlands, ii) minimized community wetlands, and iii) single outlet system, suitable for urban, peri-urban and rural areas, respectively. The socio-economic assessment, and farmer-consumers and stakeholders survey suggest that to test and use of wetland systems implementation as a policy guideline under sustainable water management.

Irrigation experiments were conducted during November to April under wheat crop in the winter season of 2012-13 and 2013-14 in the farmer’s field at Galibkhedi village located in Karnal District, Haryana State, India. In the study, collapsible multi-outlet pipe (MOP) along with single outlets pipe (SOP) was tested in farmer’s field under wheat cultivation. Irrigation was carried out in five treatments including tillage (T) with SOP and MOP; zero-tillage (ZT) with SOP and MOP, and furrow irrigation with raised bed (FIRB). Iso-time profile of waterfront spreading and advance indicated that irrigation water distribution was uniform under the plot irrigated using MOP as compared to plot irrigated using SOP. In addition, water distribution was uniform under zero tilled plots as compared to tilled plot. Results implied that MOP has several advantages over SOP in terms of application efficiency (AE) and uniformity of water distribution. Average application efficiency for the first study year was found to be in the order of ZT-MOP (82.41%) gt; FIRB (76.79%) gt; ZT-SOP (75.25%) gt; T-MOP (74.85%) gt; T-SOP (69.79%). Average application efficien-cy for the second study year was found to be in the same order as first year with some deviation in values. In the second year values of mean application efficiencies were ZT-MOP (82.58%) gt; FIRB (77.13%) gt; ZT-SOP (73.04%) gt; T-MOP (69.65%) gt; T-SOP (66.13%). Overall, this study concludes that irrigation under wheat crop using collapsible multi-outlet pipe (MOP) with zero tillage practices is a suitable option for surface irrigation that accomplishes uniform distribution of water with higher application efficiency.

Although the Ganges River Basin (GRB) has abundant water resources, the seasonal monsoon causes a mismatch in water supply and demand, which creates severe water-related challenges for the people living in the basin, the rapidly growing economy and the environment. Addressing these increasing challenges will depend on how people manage the basin’s groundwater resources, on which the reliance will increase further due to limited prospects for additional surface storage development. This report assesses the potential of the Ganges Water Machine (GWM), a concept proposed 40 years ago, to meet the increasing water demand through groundwater, and mitigate the impacts of floods and droughts. The GWM provides additional subsurface storage (SSS) through the accelerated use of groundwater prior to the onset of the monsoon season, and subsequent recharging of this SSS through monsoon surface runoff. It was identified that there is potential to enhance SSS through managed aquifer recharge during the monsoon season, and to use solar energy for groundwater pumping, which is financially more viable than using diesel as practiced in many areas at present. The report further explores the limitations associated with water quality issues for pumping and recharge in the GRB, and discusses other related challenges, including availability of land for recharge structures and people’s willingness to increase the cropping intensity beyond the present level.

The province of Punjab is the main food basket of India. In recent years, many regions of Punjab are facing acute waterlogging problems and increased secondary salinity, which have negative impacts on food security of the nation. In particular, these problems are more pronounced in the Muktsar district of Punjab. The observed groundwater levels trend between 2005 and 2011 implies that groundwater levels are coming towards the land surface at the rate of 0.5 m/year in Lambi and Malout blocks. In this study, a groundwater flow model was constructed using MODFLOW to understand the groundwater table dynamics and to test the groundwater evaporation ponds to draw down the groundwater levels in the waterlogging areas of Muktsar district. The predicted flow model results indicate that groundwater levels could be depleted at the rate of 0.3 m/year between 2012 and 2018 after the construction of Groundwater Evaporation Ponds (GEP). In addition, the constructed ponds can be used for aquaculture that generates additional income. The proposed GEP method may be a promising tool and suitable for the reduction of waterlogging in any region if there is no proper surface drainage, and also for enhancement of agricultural production that improves the social and economic status of the farming community.

Groundwater quality is gaining more importance in groundwater management due to rapid growth in population, agriculture and industrial sectors worldwide. The goal of the present study is to evaluate the groundwater chemistry and to identify the geochemical processes governing the water chemistry in the shallow uncon ned and deeper con ned aquifers in the Eastern Ganges Basin using geochemical methods. Groundwater samples were analysed for major ions and metals (Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Pb and As). Shallow wells are found to have high pH, EC, TDS, Ca, Mg, Cl and SO4, and low HCO3/Cl ratio compared to the deep wells. However, the average concentration of Na, HCO3, NO 3, PO 4, F and Mn is not signi cantly varied with depth which indicates that the variation in the water chemistry between uncon ned and con ned aquifers is not only due to the natural processes but also indicates that surface contamination sources could have affected the water chemistry in the uncon ned aquifer. In the uncon ned aquifer, processes like wastewater in ltration, denitri cation, reverse ion exchange and mineral weathering govern the water chemistry. The water chemistry in the con ned aquifer is regulated by weathering of silicate and carbonate minerals and regional ow.

The Indian Ocean Tsunami of December 26, 2004 devastated coastal ecosystems across South Asia. Along the coastal regions of South India, increased groundwater levels (GWL), largely caused by saltwater intrusion, infiltration from inundated land, and disturbance of freshwater lenses, were reported. Many agencies allocated funding for restoration and rehabilitation projects. However, to streamline funding allocation efforts, district-level groundwater inundation/recession data would have been a useful tool for planners. Thus, to ensure better preparedness for future disaster relief operations, it is crucial to quantify pre- and post-tsunami groundwater levels across coastal districts in India. Since regional scale GWL field observations are not often available, this study instead used space gravimetry data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), along with soil moisture data from the Global Land Data Assimilation Systems (GLDAS), to quantify GWL fluctuations caused by the tsunami. A time-series analysis of equivalent groundwater thickness was developed for February 2004–December 2005 and the results indicated a net increase of 274 % in GWLs along coastal regions in Tamil Nadu following the tsunami. The net recharge volume of groundwater due to the tsunami was 16.8 km3, just 15 % lower than the total annual groundwater recharge (19.8 km3) for the state of Tamil Nadu. Additionally, GWLs returned to average within 3 months following the tsunami. The analysis demonstrated the utility of remotely sensed data in predicting and assessing the impacts of natural disasters.

The present study argues that there are heterogeneous farm systems within the drylands and each farmsystem is unique in terms of its livelihood asset and agricultural practice, and therefore in sustainability.Our method is based on household survey data collected from 500 farmers in Anantapur and KurnoolDistricts, in Andhra Pradesh State of India, in 2013. We carried out principal component analysis (PCA)with subsequent hierarchical clustering methods to build farm typologies. To evaluate sustainabilityacross these farm typologies, we adopted a framework consisting of economic, social and environmentalsustainability pillars and associated indicators. We normalized values of target indicators and employednormative approach to assign different weights to these indicators. Composite sustainability indices (CSI)were then estimated by means of weighted sum of indicators, aggregated and integrated into farm typolo-gies. The results suggested that there were five distinct farm typologies representing farming systemsin the study area. The majority of farms (gt;70%) in the study area are small and extensive (typology 1);marginal and off farm based (typology 2). About 20% of the farms are irrigation based and intensive (typol-ogy 3); small and medium and off farm based (typology 4) and irrigation based semi-intensive (typology5). There was apparent variability among farm typologies in terms of farm structure and functions andcomposite sustainability indices. Farm typologies 3 and 5 showed significantly higher performances forthe social and economic indices, while typologies 2 and 4 had relatively stronger values for environment.These discrepancies support the relevance of integrated farm typology- and CSI approaches in assessingsystem sustainability and targeting technologies. Universally, for all farm typologies, composite sustain-ability indices for economic pillar was significantly lower than the social and environment pillars. Morethan 90% of farmers were in economically less-sustainable class. The correlations between sustainabilityindices for economic and environment were typology specific. It was strong and positive when aggre-gated for the whole study systems [all samples (r = 0.183; P lt; 0.001)] and for agriculture dependent farmtypologies (e.g. typologies 1 and 3). This suggests the need to elevate farms economic performance andcapacitate them to invest in the environment. These results provide information for policy makers toplan farm typology–context technological interventions and also create baseline information to evaluatesustainability performance in terms of progress made over time.

Impact of dynamic land use and land cover changes on the livelihood of local communities and ecosystem services is a major concern. This is particularly evident in most dryland agricultural systems in South Asia. We study land use/land cover (LULC) changes over the last two decades in a watershed (9589 ha) located in semi-arid eco-region in South India (Anantapuram district) using Landsat and IRS imagery. We captured additional data through field observations and focused group discussions. The high resolution 30 m data and the spectral matching techniques (SMTs) provided accuracy of 91–100% for various land use classes and 80–95% for the rice and groundnut areas. The watershed studied has undergone significant land use changes between 1988 and 2012. Diminishing size and number of surface water bodies, and contrastingly increased areas under irrigation clearly explain that the system has evolved significantly towards groundwater-irrigated groundnut production. Such changes could be beneficial in the short run, but if the groundwater withdrawal is without sufficient recharge, the long-term consequences on livelihoods could be negative. The water scarcity could be aggravated under the climate change. The construction of checkdams and dugout ponds to recharge groundwater is a potential solution to enhance recharge.

Groundwater quality receives increasing attention in water management in India. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the emerging issues of groundwater quality in the Ramganga Sub-Basin (RSB), a tributary joining the Ganga River from the northern plains, which extends over 30,839 Sq. km and covers 15 districts in both Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh. The groundwater in most of the districts of the RSB has high concentration of nitrate, iron, salinity and fluoride, which exceed the standards prescribed for drinking water by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and World Health Organization (WHO). Arsenic contamination in groundwater is an emerging issue in few groundwater development blocks. Moreover, groundwater with substantial hardness, high sulfate, and high manganese is emerging issue in some districts. Additionally, shallow aquifers have high concentration of ions. In the RSB, the quality of groundwater, especially in the shallow aquifers, is influenced by the contamination of poor quality surface water, due mainly to poor sanitation, improper disposable of domestic sewage water, manures and irrigation return flows. To reduce deterioration of water quality further, the RSB requires proper sanitation facilities, efficient usage of agrochemicals, as well as an awareness program of water-related disease.

Reviving the Ganges Water Machine (GWM), coined 40 years ago, is the most opportune solution for mitigating the impacts of recurrent droughts and floods in the Ganges River Basin in South Asia. GWM create subsurface storage (SSS) by pumping more groundwater from the aquifers before the monsoon for irrigation and other uses and recharge it during the monsoon. The present study uses fully processed and physically based numerical models, MODFLOW and SWAT, in a semi-coupled modelling framework to examine the technical feasibility of recharging the SSS. The aquifer was simulated as a two-layer system using hydrogeological and groundwater data, model was calibrated from 1999 to 2005 and validated from 2006 to 2010. It assesses the impacts of gradual increase of SSS in 10 years from the base year 2010 under two scenarios (increased rainfall or controlled pumping and recharge) to meet a potential unmet demand of 1.68 billion cubic meters (Bm3) in the Ramganga sub-basin with an area of 18,668 km2. The results show that 3–4 m of subsurface storage can be created by groundwater pumping of 0.25 Bm3/year by 2020. Under the controlled pumping and recharge scenario, groundwater recharge and river seepage could increase by 14% (4.21–4.80 Bm3) and 31% (1.10–1.44 Bm3), respectively. However, baseflow will decrease by 30% (0.18–0.12 Bm3) over the same time period. The results also show that recharge increased 44% (4.21–6.05 Bm3) under an increased rainfall scenario. Simultaneously, river seepage and baseflows would increase 36% (1.10–1.14 Bm3) and 11% (0.18–0.20 Bm3), respectively. A well-designed managed aquifer recharge program is required to eliminate the negative impact of river flows in the low flow season.

The Ganges River basin faces severe water challenges related to a mismatch between supply and demand. Although the basin has abundant surface water and groundwater resources, the seasonal monsoon causes a mismatch between supply and demand as well as flooding. Water availability and flood potential is high during the 3–4 months (June–September) of the monsoon season. Yet, the highest demands occur during the 8–9 months (October–May) of the non-monsoon period. Addressing this mismatch, which is likely to increase with increasing demand, requires substantial additional storage for both flood reduction and improvements in water supply. Due to hydrogeological, environmental, and social constraints, expansion of surface storage in the Ganges River basin is problematic. A range of interventions that focus more on the use of subsurface storage (SSS), and on the acceleration of surface–subsurface water exchange, has long been known as the Ganges Water Machine (GWM). The approach of the GWM for providing such SSS is through additional pumping and depleting of the groundwater resources prior to the onset of the monsoon season and recharging the SSS through monsoon surface runoff. An important condition for creating such SSS is the degree of unmet water demand. The paper shows that the potential unmet water demand ranging from 59 to 124 Bm3 year-1 exists under two different irrigation water use scenarios: (i) to increase irrigation in the Rabi (November–March) and hot weather (April–May) seasons in India, and the Aman (July–November) and Boro (December–May) seasons in Bangladesh, to the entire irrigable area, and (ii) to provide irrigation to Rabi and the hot weather season in India and the Aman and Boro seasons in Bangladesh to the entire cropped area. However, the potential for realizing the unmet irrigation demand is high only in 7 sub-basins in the northern and eastern parts, is moderate to low in 11 sub-basins in the middle, and has little or no potential in 4 sub-basins in the western part of the Ganges basin. Overall, a revived GWM plan has the potential to meet 45–84 Bm3year-1 of unmet water demand.

Deficit irrigation could be considered as one potential option to improve water productivity and obtain some level of assured income under water scarcity and drought conditions in Central Asia. This article investigates water productivity and economic returns to two varieties of potato crop under four different soilmoisture regimes in Uzbekistan. Results suggest that deficit irrigation may not be considered as an option to improve water productivity of potato crop, particularly when the deficit is high. However, deficit irrigation options could be still considered as a viable option to maintain food security and some assured farm income even under extreme drought conditions.

The absence of either state regulations or markets to coordinate the operation of individual wells has focussed attention on community level institutions as the primary loci for sustainable groundwater management in Rajasthan and Gujarat, India. The reported research relied on theoretical propositions that livelihood strategies, groundwater management and the propensity to cooperate are associated with the attitudinal orientations of well owners in the Meghraj and Dharta watersheds, located in Gujarat and Rajasthan respectively. The research tested the hypothesis that attitudes to groundwater management and farming practices, household income and trust levels of assisting agencies were not consistent across the watersheds, implying that a targeted approach, in contrast to default uniform programs, would assist communities craft rules to manage groundwater across multiple hydro-geological settings. Hierarchical cluster analysis of attitudes held by survey respondents revealed four statistically significant discrete clusters, supporting acceptance of the hypothesis. Further analyses revealed significant differences in farming practices, household wealth and willingness to adapt across the four groundwater management clusters. In conclusion, the need to account for attitudinal diversity is highlighted and a framework to guide the specific design of processes to assist communities craft coordinating instruments to sustainably manage local aquifers described.

Agriculture is a major occupation for people who inhabit the state of West Bengal in India. In order to boost irrigation, 570 tube wells per year were installed during 2002-2008, and 12,000 wells per year were installed during 2009-2013, contributing to higher groundwater (GW) withdrawal. However, the impact of tube wells on GW storage levels has not been well-studied, both spatially and temporally. Hence, this study used remote sensing data from NASAapos;s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment and the Global Land Data Assimilation Systems to assess change in GW storage. Results showed that GW is being depleted at 8, 5.3, and 14.7 cm (Billion Cubic Meters)/year during the study period. After tube well intensification, the state-wide average net GW recharge was 15.33 BCM/year, while the net GW discharge was at 19 BCM/year. The spatiotemporal GW storage data presented in this paper will benefit managers and policymakers in identifying suitable mitigation plans for future management of GW resources.

Climatic condition, geology, and geochemical processes in an area play a major role on groundwater quality. Impact of these on the fluoride content of groundwater was studied in three regions-part of Nalgonda district in Telangana, Pambar River basin, and Vaniyar River basin in Tamil Nadu, southern India, which experience semi-arid climate and are predominantly made of Precambrian rocks. High concentration of fluoride in groundwater above 4 mg/l was recorded. Human exposure dose for fluoride through groundwater was higher in Nalgonda than the other areas. With evaporation and rainfall being one of the major contributors for high fluoride apart from the weathering of fluoride rich minerals from rocks, the effect of increase in groundwater level on fluoride concentration was studied. This study reveals that groundwater in shallow environment of all three regions shows dilution effect due to rainfall recharge. Suitable managed aquifer recharge (MAR) methods can be adopted to dilute the fluoride rich groundwater in such regions which is explained with two case studies. However, in deep groundwater, increase in fluoride concentration with increase in groundwater level due to leaching of fluoride rich salts from the unsaturated zone was observed. Occurrence of fluoride above 1.5 mg/l was more in areas with deeper groundwater environment. Hence, practicing MAR in these regions will increase the fluoride content in groundwater and so physica or chemical treatment has to be adopted. This study brought out the fact that MAR cannot be practiced in all regions for dilution of ions in groundwater and that it is essential to analyze the fluctuation in groundwater level and the fluoride content before suggesting it as a suitable solution. Also, this study emphasizes that long-term monitoring of these factors is an important criterion for choosing the recharge areas.

India’s track record of forming robust, self-sustaining farmer cooperatives has been poor ever since the early 1900s when the movement began. For long, restrictive laws were blamed for their failure. But most of the 2,000 farmer producer companies registered under a new amendment to the Companies Act 1956 appear like old wine in a new bottle. This article explores why, and argues for the need to focus on the logic and process of promoting new farmer cooperatives to improve their success rate.

Recycling and reuse of treated wastewater are an important part of the sanitation cycle and critical in an environment such as urban India with decreasing freshwater availability and increasing costs for delivering acceptable quality water, often from far distance. This report has been developed as a possible guidance document for the Indian government and gives substantial focus to the financial and economic benefits of wastewater recycling from the perspective of public spending. The report presents possible strategies for city and state planners and policymakers in view of the sanitation situation and the role of wastewater recycling in the larger cities in India (class I and II cities and towns with populations above 50,000), and focuses on recycling at the end of sewerage systems after treatment at sewage treatment plants.

A simulation study has been carried out using the InfoCrop mustard model to assess the impact of climate change and adaptation gains and to delineate the vulnerable regions for mustard (Brassica juncea (L.) Czernj. Cosson) production in India. On an all India basis, climate change is projected to reduce mustard grain yield by ~2 % in 2020 (2010–2039), ~7.9 % in 2050 (2040–2069) and ~15 % in 2080 (2070–2099) climate scenarios of MIROC3.2.HI (a global climate model) and Providing Regional Climates for Impact Studies (PRECIS, a regional climate model) models, if no adaptation is followed. However, spatiotemporal variations exist for the magnitude of impacts. Yield is projected to reduce in regions with current mean seasonal temperature regimes above 25/10 C during crop growth. Adapting to climate change through a combination of improved input efficiency, additional fertilizers and adjusting the sowing time of current varieties can increase yield by ~17 %. With improved varieties, yield can be enhanced by ~25 % in 2020 climate scenario. But, projected benefits may reduce thereafter. Development of short-duration varieties and improved crop husbandry becomes essential for sustaining mustard yield in future climates. As climatically suitable period for mustard cultivation may reduce in future, short-duration (lt;130 days) cultivars with 63 % pod filling period will become more adaptable. There is a need to look beyond the suggested adaptation strategy to minimize the yield reduction in net vulnerable regions.

Concerns over climate change and climatic variability are growing in South Asia because of the potential detrimental impacts of these phenomena on livelihoods. Such growing concerns demonstrate a need to assess how farmers simultaneously cope with extreme events and adapt to climatic variability. Based on household surveys of 2660 farm families conducted in Nepal’s Terai, coastal Bangladesh, and the Indian state of Bihar, this paper seeks to (1) explore farmers’ coping strategies under adverse weather events; (2) identify key adaptation measures used by farmers; and (3) explore the policy interventions required to adjust agriculture to climatic variability. The study reveals that migration is the most important coping strategy of the households in Bihar and coastal Bangladesh, while reliance on credit markets is the most important in Terai. Farmers in the areas with higher rainfall variability pursue a higher number of coping strategies compared to farmers in areas with lower rainfall variability. Food available months are also higher in areas with higher rainfall variability. Across all sites, the most frequently mentioned adaptive practices are changing cropping patterns and adoption of resilient crop varieties. A large number of farmers place emphasis on breeding crop varieties that tolerate adverse weather. Governments should implement a number of planned activities to cope with adverse events, with the aim that these activities would be synergistic with adaptation to climate change.

Indus basin irrigation system (IBIS) is one of the largest contiguous irrigation systems of the world. The surface canal water supplies are far less than the crop water demands which lead farmers to use groundwater to cope surface water scarcity. Although many studies in the IBIS are conducted to analyze the equitable distribution of canal water, there is hardly any study which comprehensively analyze the equitable use of canal water and groundwater at different spatial and temporal scales. One of the main reasons is lack of reliable information on the volume of groundwater abstraction. The objective of the current study is to develop an approach for estimating the equity of canal water and groundwater use at different spatial (canal command, distributaries, head, middle and tail end reaches) and temporal (daily, monthly and seasonal) scales of Hakra canal command area of IBIS. Results show that canal water and groundwater use to meet actual evapotranspiration is 34 and 42 %, respectively, which makes groundwater as an integral part of the large canal irrigation schemes of IBIS. The canal water and groundwater use varies significantly during the cropping colander. The maximum groundwater use is during May (51 mm) whereas the maximum canal water use is during August (24 mm). Farmers located at the head end reaches of Hakra canal use 42 % groundwater of total groundwater use whereas farmers located at the middle and tail end reaches use only 35 and 23 %, respectively. The canal water use at the head, middle and tail end reaches is 40, 34 and 26 %, respectively. These results show that the farmers located at the head of Hakra canal command area use more canal water and groundwater as compared to those located at the middle and tail end reaches. This methodology can provide guidelines to water managers in the region for equitable use of both canal water and groundwater.

The Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana programme should concentrate on two low-hanging fruits. First, it should quickly put to use 20-40 million ha of unutilised irrigation potential created in major, medium and minor irrigation projects. Second, it should provide better quality power rations to farmers during the time of peak irrigation demand. Madhya Pradesh has done precisely this and multiplied the state’s irrigated area quickly, at small incremental cost, delivering double-digit agricultural growth.

The need for enhanced environmental planning and management for highland aquatic resources is described and a rationale for integrated action planning is presented. Past action planning initiatives for biodiversity conservation and wetland management are reviewed. A re ective account is given of integrated action planning from ve sites in China, India and Vietnam. Eight planning phases are described encompassing: stakeholder assessment and partner selection; rapport building and agreement on collaboration; integrated biodiversity, ecosystem services, livelihoods and policy assessment; problem analysis and target setting; strategic planning; planning and organisation of activities; coordinated implementation and monitoring; evaluation and revised target setting. The scope and targeting of actions are evaluated using the Driving forces, Pressures, State, Impacts and Responses framework and compatibility with biodiversity conservation and socio-economic development objectives are assessed. Criteria to evaluate the quality of planning processes are proposed. Principles for integrated action planning elaborated here should enable stakeholders to formulate plans to reconcile biodiversity conservation with the wise use of wetlands.

This study was designed to quantify the total water requirement and consumptive water use in carpprawn polyculture system under different water management protocols, using water balance model. Under different water management protocols, treatment-wise estimated total water use, TWU (9104, m3) was 3.7, 4.6 and 3.9, while the computed consumptive water use index, CWUI (m3 kg 1 biomass) was 6.62, 9.31 and 7.08, in T1 (no water exchange), T2 (periodic water exchange) and T3 (regulated water exchange) respectively. Significantly higher yield (P lt; 0.05) in both T2 and T3 over T1, was probably due to water exchange that improved the rearing environment. Although intensity of water exchange was more in T2, significant variation (P lt; 0.05) in overall growth and yield was not recorded between T2 and T3. Treatmentwise sediment load ranged between 54.6 and 71.3 m3 t 1 biomasses. Higher sediment load was recorded at lower intensity of water exchange as well as with higher apparent feed conversion ratio. Higher net total water productivity, net consumptive water productivity and OV-CC ratio in T3 infers that regulated water exchange has a distinct edge over the no water exchange protocol. Restricted water use instead of regular/excess water exchange not only improves the production performance and water productivity, but also helps in lessening the operational pumping cost.

Wastewater irrigaon is not new in Maharashtra and the Government of Maharashtra as well as farmers are beginning to recognize its value as a drought response. This Highlight presents a synthesis of eld exploraons in 11 locaons in Maharashtra which cover the extent of wastewater irrigaon; economics of wastewater and freshwater use; farmersapos; preferences and percepons about wastewater; and how they are adapng to its use in agriculture.

As a cold desert with extreme climate and limited precipitaon, Ladakh struggles to meet its irrigaon requirements. In recent years, a historical pracce of graing glaciers and a new innovave technique of building apos;ice stupaapos; has helped communies improve irrigaon access and extend the crop calendar. This Highlight looks at how combining sound science with credible local knowledge is helping people improve climate resilience.

On-site sanitation systems, such as septic tanks and pit latrines, are the predominant feature across rural and urban areas in most developing countries. However, their management is one of the most neglected sanitation challenges. While under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the set-up of toilet systems received the most attention, business models for the sanitation service chain, including pit desludging, sludge transport, treatment and disposal or resource recovery, are only emerging. Based on the analysis of over 40 fecal sludge management (FSM) cases from Asia, Africa and Latin America, this report shows opportunities as well as bottlenecks that FSM is facing from an institutional and entrepreneurial perspective.

Purpose: Changing climate has increasingly become a challenge for smallholder farmers. Identification of technical, institutional and policy interventions as coping and adaptation strategies, and exploring risks of their adoption for smallholder farms, are the important areas to consider. The present study carried out an in-depth analysis of adaptation strategies followed and the associated risk premium in technology adoption. Design/methodology/approach: The study was carried out in the dryland systems of three Indian states - Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan, and was based on a survey of 1,019 households in 2013. The flexible moment-based approach was used for estimating the stochastic production function, which allowed estimation of the relative risk premium that farmers are willing to pay while adopting the technologies to avoid crop production risks. Findings: In all three states, the risk premium (INR ha-1) was higher for farm mechanization compared to supplemental irrigation, except in the case of Andhra Pradesh. The higher the level of technology adoption, the higher the risk premium that households have to pay. This can be estimated by the higher investment needed to build infrastructure for farm mechanization and supplemental irrigation in the regions. The key determinants of technology adoption in the context of smallholder farmers were climatic shocks, investment in farm infrastructure, location of the farm, farm size, household health status, level of education, married years, expected profit and livestock ownership. Originality/value: Quantification of the risk premium in technology adoption, and conducting associated awareness programs for farmers and decision makers are important to strengthen evidence-based adoption decisions in the dryland systems of India.

Traditionally, Indian farmers kept bovines, especially cattle, for draught purposes in agriculture and transportation with milk as an adjunct. However, with increasing farm mechanization and rising demand for milk, the bovine functions have shifted more towards dairying. While bovine population has been increasing, the chronic scarcity of feed and fodder reinforces the need for optimization of bovine population for sustainable growth of dairying. In this paper, using district-level data from 1997 to 2007, we show that this transformation from draught to dairying is underway in some parts of the country, and further using household-level data, we find that smallholders have contributed disproportionately more to this transformation. This transformation or intensification of dairying is demand-driven with urbanization having a strong positive influence on dairy development. On the supply-side, factors like farm mechanization, improved access to groundwater irrigation and crop diversification away from cereals, are associated with a shift in the bovine economy from draught to dairying.

Responding to rainfall variability has always been one of the most critical risks facing farmers. It is also an integral part of the job of water managers, whether it be designing interventions for flood management, improving the reliability of water supply for irrigation or advising on priorities during drought conditions. The conventional tools and approaches employed are no longer sufficient to manage the increasing uncertainty and incidence of extreme climate events, and the consequent effects these have on human vulnerability and food security. To be effective, the technological advances need to be matched with physical, institutional and management innovations that transcend sectors, and place adaptation and responsiveness to variability at the centre of the approach. This chapter examines a number of these challenges and possible solutions at a range of scales, from ‘climate-smart villages’ to national policy, with a focus on Asia and India, in particular.