FloodsDroughts
How groundwater can help us build a more water-secure world
- Blog By Isis Palay, Consultant Scientists believe groundwater represents 99% of our planet’s unfrozen freshwater, and it is estimated that there is more than a hundred times more water in the ground than in all lakes and rivers. Yet our knowledge of this resource is limited compared to what we know about surface water. To better understand and more sustainably manage groundwater, researchers ...more
Four ways IWMI is using water to advance climate adaptation and mitigation around the world
- Blog As the proceedings at COP26 are making abundantly clear, water and climate are inextricably linked across the entire world. After all, it is largely through water that most people will experience climate change for the first time, whether it assumes the form of unpredictable rainfall, floods, or droughts. Already, these disruptions are impacting the planet’s food systems, drinking water supplies, and ...more
Climate, water, and poverty reduction - exploring the critical links
- Blog By Isis Palay, Consultant, IWMI Every October 17, we pause to observe International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, celebrating hard-earned progress we have made while acknowledging the considerable distance that remains before our goal is achieved. Indeed, last year extreme poverty rose globally for the first time in over twenty years. The pandemic was one key cause, but so too ...more
International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction 2021
- Blog Why climate, development, and disaster sectors must work together to achieve global goals By Giriraj Amarnath, Research Group Leader – Water Risk to Development and Resilience and Principal Researcher – Disaster Risk Management and Climate Resilience, IWMI and Rachael Mcdonnell, Deputy Director General – Research for Development, IWMI Greater international cooperation is urgently needed to support developing countries reduce the risk ...more
How water can boost environmental health and biodiversity
- Blog Water is at the core of our planet’s biodiversity and helps to create a sustainable future Nature provides “green infrastructure” that complements the dams, levees, and canals that humans construct. Aquifers store freshwater that can help us more effectively navigate droughts, mangroves can protect coastlines from destructive storms, and wetlands in some circumstances can help reduce the impact of flooding ...more
Water's Fundamental Truths: Part 3 – Is water governance coming of age?
- Blog By Alan Nicol, Strategic Program Director - Water Growth and Inclusion, IWMI and Diana Suhardiman, Research Group Lead Governance and Inclusion / Senior Researcher - Policy and Institutions, IWMI The recent IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report makes more explicit than ever water’s central role in translating global warming into catastrophic impacts on human and natural systems, and the CGIAR reflects water’s ...more
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
Tunisia joins Morocco, Lebanon, and Jordan in using state-of-the-art drought management technology
- Blog With the first-ever Middle East and North Africa Climate Week just concluded, learn how improved drought preparedness is helping strengthen the region’s resilience to climate change. By Carolyn Fry Wadi Nebhana, Tunisia. Photo: ©IRD – Christian Leduc. www.indigo.ird.fr Drought-monitoring technology that is currently being embedded in water and agricultural ministries in Jordan, Lebanon, and Morocco will now be implemented in Tunisia. The ...more
Gulf News: Year for drought action for the MENA region
- IWMI in the news While MENA Climate Week may last only four days, adaptation actions need to accelerate fast to continue the region’s development, and the success of both comes down to smarter water management. Water is life and bringing today’s technologies and policy solutions, together with traditional understanding and management of this precious resource will be critical in the decades ...more
MENADrought, collaboration, and lessons learned on Jordan's path to drought resilience
- Blog By Lucy Lawrenson, IWMI Consultant Between the mountains of Iran and the coastal plains of Morocco lies a region facing significant drought risks: the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Drought has been common in MENA for centuries, but climate change is making droughts more frequent, unpredictable, and dangerous. Faced with this growing threat, the Government of Jordan is strengthening its ...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
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