FloodsDroughts
Five key takeaways from World Water Week
- Blog This year’s World Water Week ran just two weeks after the release of the IPCC Working Group 1 report, which warned that humanity is facing ‘code red’ thanks to the climate crisis. To some degree, the report, and its overwhelming message of urgent need for change, dominated the virtual event’s sessions. Photo: Hamish John Appleby / IWMI Henrika Thomasson, Director of ...more
How a new framework can provide flood insurance guidance to millions of farmers
- Blog Giriraj Amarnath, Principal Researcher – Disaster Risk Management and Climate Resilience, International Water Management Institute Maize farmers in India Floods, storms and droughts dominate the list of disasters that have occurred globally in the last 50 years. Between 1970 and 2019, weather, climate and water hazards accounted for 50% of all disasters, 45% of reported deaths and 74% of all reported ...more
Latest IPCC report highlights how climate change is causing extreme events and exacerbating risks of floods and droughts
- Blog By Aditi Mukherji (IWMI) Aditi is a Principal Researcher at IWMI and is a Coordinating Lead Author of Water Chapter IPCC’s Working Group II, and a core writing team member of IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report. A drying lake in Thanthirimale located in the Anuradhapura District of Sri Lanka. Photo: Samurdhi Ranasinghe / IWMI Extreme weather events are slamming the globe. In July, ...more
Three months of floods, or nine months of drought
- Blog An Interview with Mohsin Hafeez, Country Representative – Pakistan, Regional Representative – Central Asia By Clara Colton Symmes, Princeton in Asia Fellow, IWMI An intense monsoon season in Pakistan means the country’s food system faces the challenge of both extreme floods and extended droughts. Farmer working in a paddy field. Photo: Faseeh Shams / IWMI In an effort to address these challenges through ...more
How hybrid water law can transform water access in southern Africa
- An interview with Dr. Inga Jacobs-Mata Blog By Clara Symmes, Princeton in Asia Fellow, IWMI This year’s World Environment Day, the UN and its partner organizations will rally around the theme of #generationrestoration to celebrate and engage individuals and organizations with projects that work to care for our environment. Women lay pipes for a drip irrigation system in South Africa. Photo: Graeme Williams ...more
Hi-tech support helps Sri Lanka's farmers navigate the climate crisis
- Blog by Samurdhi Ranasinghe, Communications Officer, IWMI This piece was originally published on Daily Mirror (Sri Lanka) Around 100 farmers in the north central province of Sri Lanka have recently received insurance payouts for crop damage caused by excess rain. The payouts come via an initiative from the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) that uses satellite data to provide climate risk insurance and agro-climatic advice to marginalized famers to build their livelihoods ...more
Ahead of UN Summit consensus that action on water critical to transforming food systems
- Media Release (Colombo, April 28, 2021) The Food Systems Summit Global Dialogue; Water – the Game-changer for Food Systems has concluded with consensus that water has unmatched utility to support the necessary transformation of food systems. Participants, including six senior IWMI experts agreed that water plays a critical role in future proofing food systems against climate shocks and pandemics; making them ...more
Innovations and smart water technologies key to food systems transformation in Central Asia
- Media Release (Tashkent/Colombo, 23 April 2021) – Creating the food systems that people want and need across Central Asia will depend in part on how water is managed under climate uncertainty, delegates at the UN Food Systems Summit Independent Dialogues (Central Asia) concluded. Photo: Madeline Dahm / IWMI Representatives from academia, government and NGOs highlighted the critical need for innovation, promotion and ...more
Three ways water solutions restore the planet
- Blog Lucy Lawrenson, IWMI Communications and Climate Change Intern This November, Glasgow will host the 26th United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP26). The conference will bring together world leaders to discuss humanity’s shared future in the face of climate change, as well as the future of our planet. Although each country faces its own unique climate risks, we all share ...more
Three ways great water solutions can address climate change
- Blog By Isis Palay, Communications and Knowledge Management Intern, IWMI Climate change is one of the most serious crises facing humanity. Not only is it causing a rise in global temperature and increasing extreme weather events, but it is also acting as a catalyst for many other major issues, such as water access and distribution. Photo: Seersa Abaza / IWMI Since the 1980s, ...more
Thinking Hydrologically
- Blog An Interview with Oyture Anarbekov, IWMI Country Manager – Uzbekistan By Clara Colton Symmes, Princeton in Asia Fellow, IWMI Water is running out in Central Asia. New approaches to water regulation, energy production, and agricultural education are necessary to be able to feed the region. An irrigation water channel in Central Asia. Photo: Neil Palmer / IWMI To ensure that the voices of ...more
Innovations and smart water technologies key to food systems transformation in Central Asia
- Media Release (Tashkent/Colombo, 23 April 2021) – Creating the food systems that people want and need across Central Asia will depend in part on how water is managed under climate uncertainty, delegates at the UN Food Systems Summit Independent Dialogues (Central Asia) concluded. Photo: Madeline Dahm / IWMI Representatives from academia, government and NGOs highlighted the critical need for innovation, promotion and ...more
New project brings five African countries together to jointly manage region’s groundwater
- Media Release (Pretoria/Colombo, 8 April 2021) – The five Partner States of the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) have joined forces with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) to manage groundwater resources spanning an area larger than Austria and Germany. Photo: Xueliang Cai / IWMI Groundwater and aquifers are increasingly playing a role in supplying reliable water supplies to dispersed ...more
Ramsar Convention and the wise use of wetlands: rethinking gender equality and inclusion
- Blog By Deepa Joshi, Gender, Youth and Inclusion Lead, WLE and Sanjiv de Silva, Senior Regional Researcher – Natural Resources Governance, IWMI Photo: Holly Holmes/World Fish Center The Ramsar Convention, an international, intergovernmental convention promoting the wise protection and sustainable use of wetlands, was founded in 1971. However, it wasn’t until 2018 that a resolution on gender was added to the convention. ...more
Can you hear me? Covid-19 and building women’s resilience in northern Ghana
- Blog Esther Wahabu, Research Officer – Social Sciences, IWMI, Accra, Ghana Women planting onions in the Upper East Region of Ghana. Photo: Hamish John Appleby Covid-19 has been a huge barrier to women’s empowerment, both in the global north and the global south. In both regions, women have found themselves suddenly away from the workplace and back in the home, responsible for ...more
Everything you need to know about water and migration
- Interview with an expert (series) Blog Irrigation in drought-hit Gujarat. Photo: Hamish John Appleby / IWMI Most of us know someone who has migrated. Maybe a relative moved to a new country to be closer to family, or left in search of different job opportunities. There are around 272 million migrants in the world today, which is around 3.5 percent of the ...more
Success despite Covid: Hope from a Water Users Association in Central Myanmar
- Blog By Marie-Charlotte Buisson, Petra Schmitter and Nyan Thiha Since last year, we had enough water and vegetables to procure a good income as long as I get water, so I will continue this year again. The impact Covid-19 has had on farmers has been devastating. Harvest delays due to mobility restrictions, reduced availability of labor and variability in output and input price ...more
Everything you need to know about Race To Zero and COP26
- Blog Today is water day of the Race To Zero November dialogues, part of a global campaign initially designed to drum up momentum ahead of COP26. A farmer tends to her maize crop at Phat Sanday, Cambodia. Photo: Neil Palmer / IWMI IWMI’s Dr Rachael McDonnell and Dr Giriraj Amarnath will be presenting a showcase during the event, which has the theme ...more
IWMI receives the 2020 GEO Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Award
- Blog The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) has been awarded the 2020 GEO Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Award in the Special Category of Innovation linked to SDG Target 13.1. This is in recognition of the Index-Based Flood Insurance (IBFI) product developed by IWMI scientist Dr Giriraj Amarnath, Research Group Leader – Water Risks to Development and Resilience (WRDR). He accepted the ...more
Mainstreaming technology provides key solutions for disaster risk mitigation
- Giriraj Amarnath, Research Group Leader – Water Risks and Development Resilience (WRDR) Barti Devi from Gaya district, Bihar holding the bundle of harvested drought-tolerant rice crop from the 2019 Kharif season provided through the BICSA project. Photo: IWMI The recently published World Water Development Report 2020 (WWDR 2020) highlights current impacts and anticipated future risks associated with extreme weather events, and ...more
Population pressure and increasing water competition in a changing climate require us to take stock of the availability and use of water across scales. Water availability not only influences farmers’ commercial prospects but also irrigation-related enterprises and agri-businesses. Greater water scarcity could jeopardize irrigation and agricultural markets while excessive water use can lead to declining ecosystems, water quality and soil health. IWMI advises development partners and the public and private sectors on all aspects of water resource availability and use through a variety of advanced modeling and remote-sensing products and tools, including 
The ability of farmers to engage in or expand irrigation depends on the prevailing socioeconomic, ecological and political contexts, which are often complex, non-linear and changeable. Overcoming systemic barriers to farmer-led irrigation development while taking advantage of existing opportunities 
A lack of affordable credit, particularly for women and resource-poor farmers, is one of the main barriers to expanding farmer-led irrigation in low- and middle-income countries. But 
Scaling farmer-led irrigation requires strengthening human capacity and knowledge exchange among all actors and stakeholders involved. IWMI takes an action research approach, working with national and international research institutions, governments, extension agents and public and private organizations to co-develop the scaling ecosystem and strengthen capacity to drive scaling networks and collective action. We support the