Water, Land and Ecosystems - 5.2 Resource allocation and sharing of benefits for all

Traditional and socio-hydrological approaches to ecosystem services (ESS) assessments using SWAT

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:55 +0000

SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) is the most widely applied hydrology (and associated catchment processes) model worldwide. There are current efforts getting under way to develop protocols for assessing Ecosystem Services using SWAT, but there is little consensus and no clear guidelines for new or veteran researchers in using SWAT for this purpose. Because of the models’ widespread use, it is important that standard protocols and guidelines be developed to support CG research in their efforts. The project will aim to: 1. Produce User Guidelines for employing SWAT to assess ecosystem services. Guidelines will be published as a WLE Publication and linked to the recent WLE ESS&R Framework 2. Facilitate and strengthen the CG SWAT Community of Practice, initiated in 2014, holding a meeting during 2015. 3. Continue work to develop socio-hydrological approaches to integrating gender differentiated assessment of ecosystem services using SWAT by finalizing methods paper.

Contact Person

Tracy Baker (T.Baker@cgiar.org)

Lead Center

International Water Management Institute (IWMI)

Completed

Start/End dateJanuary 01, 2015 — December 01, 2016

Research ThemeVariability, Risks and Competing Uses

Cluster

5.2 Resource allocation and sharing of benefits for all

Regions

Global

Enhancing the resilience and productivity of rainfed dominated systems in Lao PDR through sustainable groundwater use

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:55 +0000

Agriculture sustains the livelihoods of the majority of people within Lao PDR. However most farmers can only grow a single crop each year on small plots of land that can be severely impacted by climate variability. The area under irrigation still remains very low and largely sourced from surface water. Groundwater development can potentially offer water on demand for crop diversification and intensification for food security and livelihood enhancement. Experience in the use of groundwater for irrigation in Laos is limited but could offer a great deal of promise if the main technical and non-technical barriers can be overcome and the available resources are adequately understood, appropriately developed and sustainably managed. The research is multi-disciplinary in nature to address the wide range of biophysical, socio-economic and institutional aspects of groundwater development and management. The project has 6 main components: 1) Development hotspots and resource potential; 2) Irrigation pilot trial evaluations; 3) Opportunities and constraints for agricultural groundwater use; 4) Groundwater governance and policies; 5) Sustainability assessments and modeling; and 6) Capacity building, training & institutional enhancement. The project is now into its third year and due to end in mid-2016. Elements of the research in each component are maturing and a steady stream of outputs and outcomes are emerging that meet the needs/priorities of the research users. In 2015 outputs will include tools and publications on the groundwater resources, papers on farmers perceptions on groundwater as a livelihood strategy, specialist trainings and numerous Lao student theses. At the national level greater recognition is being given to groundwater in Laos and this is in part attributed to this project.

Contact Person

Paul Pavelic (p.pavelic@cgiar.org)

Lead Center

International Water Management Institute (IWMI)

Partners

Department of Water Resources, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Lao PDR, National University of Laos Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Department of Irrigation, Natural Resources and Environment Institute, NUOL Faculty of Water Resources, Khon Kaen University Groundwater Research Centre, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies

Completed

Start/End dateAugust 01, 2012 — July 01, 2016

Research ThemeVariability, Risks and Competing Uses

Cluster

5.2 Resource allocation and sharing of benefits for all

Regions

Southeast Asia

Countries

Laos

Creating reservoir wetlands for fisheries and other ecosystem services

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:55 +0000

Water reservoirs are never impounded for fisheries per se but increased fish production is often promoted as an important secondary benefit – a provisioning service - of reservoirs created for hydropower, irrigation or water supply. Often this increased fishery is presented by dam proponents as a benefit for local people that will, at least in-part, compensate them for the disruption to their livelihoods caused by the dam construction. However, reservoir fisheries often fail to live up to expectations. The principal objective of this project is to improve local livelihoods by enhancing fisheries through the construction of small wetlands within the drawdown zone (i.e. below the full supply level (FSL)) of a reservoir. The premise is that these wetlands will create more diverse habitat and provide refuges and breeding areas for fish when the reservoir is drawdown. This in turn will lead to greater fish production within the reservoir, reduced fishing effort, increased catches, improved returns and greater livelihood benefits. By creating new environments it is anticipated the wetlands will enhance other ecosystem services, improving the livelihoods and increasing the resilience of local communities. The Theun Hinboun Hydropower Company (THPC) are partnering on the project. The study is required to provide an evidence base that will convince senior management of the company and its board of directors to proceed with the construction of two wetlands with the aim of helping the company satisfy requirements to improve the livelihoods of resettled communities. In 2014 and 2015 we have been proceeding with the studies required to prove that the wetlands are feasible and can bring real livelihood benefits, particularly for women. We will present the evidence to THPC senior management in October this year. We are collaborating with WorldFish who are conducting a study on the livelihoods of resettled communities in the vicinity of the Nam Gnoaung Reservoir and who have conducted baseline surveys of the reservoir fishery. In 2015 we will produce a joint research report with WorldFish entitled: Creation of reservoir wetlands to improve livelihoods in the Nam Gnouang Reservoir, Lao PDR.

Contact Person

McCartney, Matthew (m.mccartney@cgiar.org)

Lead Center

International Water Management Institute (IWMI)

Partners

International Center for Environmental Management, Department of Fisheries, Faculty of Agriculture, National University of Laos, Theun-Hinboun Power Company, Department of Livestock and Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Lao PDR

Completed

Start/End dateJanuary 01, 2014 — December 01, 2016

Research ThemeVariability, Risks and Competing Uses

Cluster

5.2 Resource allocation and sharing of benefits for all

Regions

Southeast Asia

Countries

Laos

Four Basin Gender Profiles

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:55 +0000

Spatially referenced information on gender particularly for large geographic areas is currently not available. This research will address this identified gap in four river basins (Ganges, Nile, Volta, Mekong), and provide an evidence base on gender for future research. Results will include geo-referenced basin-level maps of quantitative sex disaggregated data, qualitative case studies, and analyses of gender relations as they pertain to the water sector thus affecting land and ecosystems. The quantitative data product will inform IWMI and WLE planning and policy at the basin, sub-basin, national and regional scale. The qualitative data will be indicative of the complexities and specificities of gender relations. These context specific examples will attend to the nuances of gender relations and intersecting factors such as class, caste, religion, ethnicity and migration which reflect the complexities of every-day lived realities. Further, an innovative web-based interactive tool that collates all the project data as an information source for researchers, practitioners, donors, governments and other stakeholders will be developed in 2015. An open source document, it will appear as a live link on the IWMI and WLE websites to which data can be uploaded by an identified administrator following a review process.

Contact Person

Jayne Curnow (j.curnow@cgiar.org)

Lead Center

International Water Management Institute (IWMI)

Completed

Start/End dateFebruary 01, 2014 — December 01, 2016

Research ThemeVariability, Risks and Competing Uses

Cluster

5.2 Resource allocation and sharing of benefits for all

Regions

Southern Asia, Western Africa, Southeast Asia, Eastern Africa

Countries

Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Nepal

Anticipation of consequences of implementing Rewards for Ecosystem Services (RES) in Peru on livelihoods, equity and gender issues

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:55 +0000

The implementation of the scheme of Rewards for Ecosystem Services in the Canete watershed in Peru will start in 2015 and monitoring and evaluation activities are expected in the long run. However, these activities are more related to the fund resources execution rather than on the impacts on this scheme on livelihoods and equity. Also, previous studies in this watershed focused on water balance and economic valuation with few efforts on understanding the current status of human wellbeing dimensions and how these affect or not the adoption of conservation measures. Consequently, any activity oriented to build the baseline upon which such impact assessment and monitoring can be conducted is needed. In this respect, CIAT will contribute to this process by collecting data to build a baseline upon which the impact assessment of rewards for ES on livelihoods and equity will be possible. This activity will also incorporate a component oriented to identify the most important factors that determined the adoption of previous conservation efforts; the identification of these adoption determinants will be useful for RES managers when implementing the activities funded with the recently created Fund for RES. The baseline will allow us to anticipate in an ex-ante manner, the likely effects on these rewards on local livelihoods and equity. This activity is rooted on the long term agreement between CIAT (with support of WLE) and Ministry of Environment in Peru where CIAT provides advice on various technical/scientific aspects of RES in the country. The results of this study will inform MINAM, who has the official role of evaluating RES schemes, about the social impacts of these schemes. This information is expected to further support more efforts of MINAM when promoting these schemes in the country by providing evidence on the impacts on RES on human wellbeing. To do this, basic assessment of opportunity cost of three-four interventions funded by the PES, including preferences from a choice experiment in the communities, will be applied in ex-ante scenario analysis on the data from household surveys. The study will include 10 communities that will benefit from the PES. The PES scheme is expected to impact communities that manage 16,000 ha (aprox). Main research questions are: What are the socio-economic impacts of the Rewards for Ecosystem Services (RES) scheme? Does the RES reward reduce household vulnerability through impacts in production and income?Does the RES improve food security? How does the RES affect people not receiving rewards for ES?. The baseline of the study will include control and treated (with PES) households, where information on the following aspects will be included: • Demographic characteristics • Migration • Off farm Employment • Food security • Income changes and stability/volatility • Subsistence hunting and gathering • Agricultural Production and practices, including livestock • Government/NGOs support • Gender disaggregated analysis • Cultural values (to be defined)

Contact Person

Marcela Quintero (m.quintero@cgiar.org)

Lead Center

International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)

Partners

Ministry of the Environment

Completed

Start/End dateJanuary 01, 2015 — December 01, 2016

Research ThemeVariability, Risks and Competing Uses

Cluster

5.2 Resource allocation and sharing of benefits for all

Regions

Latin America

Countries

Peru

Managing ecosystem services for food security and the nutritional health of the rural poor at the forest agricultural interface (Colombia and Peru)

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:55 +0000

Activity description: This project activity ‘Managing ecosystem services for food security and the nutritional health of the rural poor at the forest-agricultural interface’, also called ASSETS, was established with the aim to document the relations between ecosystem services, food security and the nutritional health of local communities living in the forest-agriculture interface. ASSETS is interdisciplinary by nature, including the use of participatory methods, household and dietary surveys, modeling, economic valuation and risk analysis, aimed at investigating three major research themes: i) Drivers, pressures and linkages between food security, nutritional health and ecosystem services; ii) Crises and tipping points involving past, present and future interactions between food insecurity and ecosystem services at the forest-agriculture interface; and iii) The science-policy interface. The project initiated in 2013 with field data collection in Colombia (Amazon department), and will continue in 2015 with data collection in Peru (Ucayali region) and analysis of results. In 2015, the project team will carry out focal groups and household surveys to understand the interactions between ecosystem services and, food security and nutritional health for the rural communities; This activity has a complementary sub-activity entitled “Impact Assessment Study on the effects of land use changes occurred in the past decade on household well-being and ecosystem Services in the Ucayali Region, Peru (Amazon region)”. This activity complements the three major research themes mentioned above with an impact assessment of the past land use changes in the region on ecosystem services, food security and livelihoods. Today, the landscape in upland communities of the Peruvian project site has been strongly affected by land use change: along the main road and its ancillary, oil palm cultivation stretches for miles, interrupted by pasturelands and cacao plantations in suitable areas. This sub-activity aims to understand the agriculture, livelihood, and ecosystem use changes that have occurred in mestizo communities partly due to oil palm cultivation, which started as a development plan to reconvert coca production and has subsequently grown in the past decade as a profitable, albeit heavily subsidized, business. Given the strong political interest in oil palm cultivation at the national and local level, our objective is to inform policy makers on the changes that the promotion of oil palm monoculture has brought about in the Ucayali region and provide recommendations for the future development of this crop taking into account the changes in household wealth, dietary quality and diversity, and in their relationship with the ecosystem, which ultimately affect their ability to achieve long-term resilience and inclusive well-being. This activity will answer three research questions: 1) What are the changes in agricultural and livelihood diversity occurred in the past thirteen years and what is the role played by oil palm cultivation in contributing to these changes? (2015-2016) 2) Has use of and dependency from the ecosystem changed because of the conversion of land to oil palm cultivation? (2015-2016) 3) Are the changes in income, wealth, diets, use of ecosystem services and vulnerability to shocks different among farmers who have converted land to oil palm plantations more recently and those who have been oil palm growers for longer, living in areas where landscapes have been strongly modified by oil palm cultivation? (2015-2016)

Contact Person

Marcela Quintero (m.quintero@CGIAR.ORG)

Lead Center

International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)

Partners

Ministry of the Environment, Peruvian Ministry of the Environment

Completed

Start/End dateJanuary 01, 2015 — August 30, 2016

Research ThemeVariability, Risks and Competing Uses

Cluster

5.2 Resource allocation and sharing of benefits for all

Regions

Latin America

Countries

Colombia, Peru

Global Water futures update-book

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:55 +0000

We are still finalizing the global water book and online database in early 2015.

Contact Person

Claudia Ringler (c.ringler@cgiar.org)

Lead Center

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Completed

Start/End dateJanuary 01, 2015 — December 31, 2015

Research ThemeVariability, Risks and Competing Uses

Cluster

5.2 Resource allocation and sharing of benefits for all

Regions

Global

Countries

Global-level projects

Environmental Water Requirements of Freshwater Ecosystems – Global Assessment

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:55 +0000

The first global-scale assessment of environmental flows (EF) and environmental water scarcity was based on hydrological principles and ecological perceptions, used WaterGap model (Doll et al, 2003) simulated river flow data at the grid of 0.5 degree, focused on surface water only and considered, effectively, just one global ecosystem scenario - that of “fair” ecosystems’ condition. This project revisits this work and considers the following: 1. Bringing larger environmental aspects and concepts of Ecosystem Services (ESS) into the picture; the methodology will try and identify how to relate explicitly ESS with EF, and if there is an optimal point in development (based on the maximum of ESSs from developed and natural ES) beyond which it is not justified 2. Using more accurate, more recent and more spatially resolute hydrological data, provided by several global hydrology models. Amongst others, we will aim to work with partners, who are developing models with 5’ spatial resolution 3. Looking into possibilities of establishing environmental water targets and indicators for both surface and groundwater 4. Aim is to develop a monitoring tool that reflects the environmental status of global freshwater resources. This will help to develop clear link with developing water targets and indicators for the SDGs (UN-WATER Discussion document, 2013).

Contact Person

Sood, Aditya (a.sood@cgiar.org)

Lead Center

International Water Management Institute (IWMI)

Partners

Delft University of Technology

Completed

Start/End dateJanuary 01, 2014 — December 01, 2015

Research ThemeVariability, Risks and Competing Uses

Cluster

5.2 Resource allocation and sharing of benefits for all

Regions

Global

Countries

Global-level projects

Global water quality modeling – a model application to assess environmental benefit of land conservation and enhancing model capacity of simulating linkage between livestock production and water quality

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:55 +0000

This study builds on water quality modeling work completed in a previous, bilateral WLE project, in which a global water quality modeling system was developed to simulate the loadings of nitrogen and phosphorus pollutants from agricultural production systems globally. The new project consists of two proposed activities and will extend the previous work in several important ways. In the first activity, the model will be applied to assess benefits to the quality of global fresh water environment which may arise from adoption of sustainable land management (SLM) technologies. Evaluating the impacts of land management practices on water quality constitutes a major interest of water quality modeling studies. To our best knowledge, this type of assessment has not been carried out at a global scale. Given the budget, budgetary cuts and the time frame of the project, we will focus on conservation tillage technology, which is one of most widely adopted SLM technologies presently. This activity involves reviewing literature to compile spatial data sets characterizing the current status of conservation tillage technology adoption and using the developed data set to inform water quality simulation and scenario development. The second activity aims at enhancing the current model’s capacity in estimating nutrient loadings related to livestock excreta nutrients. To achieve this goal, firstly, we will attempt to link our global water quality model to a newly developed livestock production simulation module. The new module provides a better representation of dynamics of livestock production system development and will help put our water quality scenario analysis on a more solid basis. This activity will all also include a re-estimation of the recycling rates of excreta nutrient to crop land. To our best knowledge, there is little compiled data to track the fate of excreta nutrients in the environment or partition these among their different uses (manure and energy production etc.), especially in developing countries. In global studies on the nutrient cycle, it is typically assumed that 90-95% of stored and available nutrients from livestock excreta go to crop lands in developing countries. This assumption is based on few studies in 1990s and was already adopted in our model. However, we have received comments from researchers in the land management field, who pointed out that this assumption leads to an overestimation of manure application in African countries. Considering livestock manure acts as an important source of nutrient input to agricultural lands in water quality simulations, improved estimates of excreta nutrient input rates are needed. In the estimation, we will review the literature on manure management and utilize relevant household data at micro-level collected in IFPRI’s past studies. The new data set will help enhance our baseline results of water quality simulations. It can be used to support studies in other areas, such land nutrient balances or land degradation analysis.

Contact Person

Hua Xie (h.xie@cgiar.org)

Lead Center

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Partners

United Nations Environment Programme

Completed

Start/End dateJanuary 01, 2015 — December 01, 2015

Research ThemeVariability, Risks and Competing Uses

Cluster

5.2 Resource allocation and sharing of benefits for all

Regions

Global

Countries

Global-level projects

Enhancing groundwater simulation in the IMPACT-Water model for assessment of groundwater irrigation sustainability and food production impacts

wle_admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 21:26:55 +0000

Groundwater plays an increasingly important role in improving food security and reducing poverty. Groundwater storage can increase the resilience of water supply systems, supporting proper functioning of irrigated agriculture and associated agro-ecological systems in the dry season and during droughts. Presently, more than a third of irrigated cropland in the world depends on groundwater. A significant share of groundwater-irrigated areas overdraft groundwater, which jeopardizes the sustainability of irrigated agriculture in the long term, raises extraction costs, and damages groundwater-dependent ecosystems in those areas. However, in the near term, ceasing groundwater overuse in these areas can have negative food security and socio-economic impacts on rural communities within established agricultural systems that rely on groundwater. Meanwhile, underutilization of groundwater is common in some other areas, in particular in Sub-Saharan Africa, where farmers suffer crop losses during drought years despite abundant water beneath parched land. Various existing studies have examined groundwater overdraft issues at local and regional scales, using economic and hydrological models. More recently, researchers have assessed global groundwater overdraft using global-scale hydrological models and historical groundwater use records. Nevertheless, there is a lack of knowledge of global groundwater irrigation sustainability and the food security impacts of ceasing groundwater overdraft in the short term. Filling this knowledge gap can provide useful policy insights for securing future food supplies and sustaining groundwater-related ecosystem services. A spatially explicit groundwater balance module has been set up, which simulates groundwater recharge, discharge (as base flow) and groundwater pumping, using existing hydrological and hydrogeological information for major aquifers around the world. Groundwater store is divided into an “active store that is connected to surface water” (shallow aquifer) and a “fossil store that is not connect to surface hydrological processes or shallow aquifer but can be accessed with deep tube wells” (deep aquifer). The new module is linked to the global hydrological model (IGHM) and the water management model (IWSM) in the IMPACT (International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade) Modeling System. In 2015, we will improve the structure of the new groundwater module and its calibration and validation. A paper will be submitted which summarizes the newly developed groundwater module and its integration into the IMPACT Modeling System. In collaboration with IWMI, the model will be applied to regional studies on groundwater management and food security impacts in India and China. Scenario analysis will be conducted to explore the socioeconomic consequences of ceasing groundwater overdraft, and to identify promising options that can mitigate unfavorable consequences of ceasing overdraft.

Contact Person

Tingju Zhu (t.zhu@cgiar.org)

Lead Center

International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Partners

International Water Management Institute

Completed

Start/End dateMay 01, 2014 — December 01, 2015

Research ThemeVariability, Risks and Competing Uses

Cluster

5.2 Resource allocation and sharing of benefits for all

Regions

Global

Countries

Global-level projects