Book Chapters

In human, economic, and environmental terms, the total cost of disaster and crisis response is extremely high, and the disastrous combination of the food price crises coming on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic and natural calamities is straining public budgets and squeezing financial options. In 2020, private and public losses from weather-related disasters alone exceeded a total of US$258 billion globally — 29 percent above the 2001–2020 average — making it the fifth costliest year on record, and rising temperatures are expected to bring even more frequent and severe extreme weather events. At the same time, conflict has become a leading contributor to humanitarian crisis situations — as seen most recently with the food and energy crises precipitated by the Russia-Ukraine war and refugee flows driven by the Syrian civil war.

Water scarcity has become one of the greatest challenges facing humankind today. Its scarcity is compounded by climate change and increasing demand from a growing population. In South Africa, over 60% of the available freshwater resources are used in agriculture, mainly in irrigated agriculture. There is an urgent need to promote sustainable irrigation technologies that optimize food production without increasing water applied and with positive environmental spinoffs. Sustainable irrigation technologies and practices could enhance water use efficiency (WUE) and productivity in agriculture and reduce environmental burdens, including energy use. This chapter highlights some of the innovative irrigation practices and technologies that enhance food production and, at the same time, reduce water use in agriculture. The chapter broadly discusses WUE and water productivity (WP) in irrigated agriculture from engineering and agronomic perspectives. The chapter further highlights some of the environmental impacts of irrigation expansion and the possible solutions. We further provide the importance of accurate spatial information on irrigated areas to inform policy on irrigation expansion. The Water Research Commission (WRC) of South Africa has been spearheading research on the sustainable use of water for the past 50 years as part of its research agenda.

The Central Dry Zone (CDZ) of Myanmar is the heartland of the Burmese culture, and in many ways, it is socially and culturally coherent with the other rice-centred cultures of mainland Southeast Asia. In climatic terms, it is a semi-arid outlier in a mostly wet-tropical region. Climate change is exacerbating weather variability and water insecurity, and the CDZ thus epitomises the challenges posed by climate change for much of the region. This chapter describes two examples of interventions aimed at addressing water insecurity in the CDZ: pumped irrigation at Pyawt Ywar; and artesian groundwater in the Pale Subbasin. Both address the interconnections between social and physical drivers of vulnerability. They demonstrate the challenges and importance of working across institutional scales. These examples demonstrate that progress is possible at local levels despite a lack of (or inappropriate) national policy and regulations, which limit the scale, and possibly the long-term sustainability of such gains.

Agriculture is the largest single source of environmental degradation, responsible for over 30% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, 70% of freshwater use and 80% of land conversion: it is the single largest driver of biodiversity loss (Foley JA, Science 309:570–574, 2005, Nature 478:337–342, 2011; IPBES. Global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. IPBES Secretariat, Bonn, 2019; Willett W et al. The Lancet 393:447–492, 2019). Agriculture also underpins poor human health, contributing to 11 million premature deaths annually. While too many still struggle from acute hunger, a growing number of individuals, including in low to middle-income countries (LMICs), struggle to access healthy foods. Greater consideration for, and integration of, biodiversity in agriculture is a key solution space for improving health, eliminating hunger and achieving nature-positive development objectives. This rapid evidence review documents the best available evidence of agriculture’s relationships with biodiversity, drawing on the contributions of leading biodiversity experts, and recommends actions that can be taken to move towards more biodiversity/nature-positive production through the delivery of integrated agricultural solutions for climate, biodiversity, nutrition and livelihoods. The analysis, which takes a whole-of-food-system approach, brings together a large body of evidence. It accounts for aspects not typically captured in a stand-alone primary piece of research and indicates where there are critical gaps.

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.

Pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) has for years been touted as a suitable alternative for balancing the mismatch between demand and supply of electricity. As the world transits from a fossil fuel-based electricity sector to a renewable energy-based one, PHES is also continuously being used to resolve challenges regarding variable or intermittent sources of energy. This chapter presents lessons from countless literature and studies on the global development and market environment of PHES. The study reveals that critical factors such as investing in public-private research, development and deployment, instituting regulatory frameworks that stimulate innovative operation of PHES, increasing digital operation of PHES systems, and retrofitting PHES facilities could foster the uptake and revolutionize the development of PHES.

This chapter provides a survey of pumped hydroelectric energy storage (PHES) in terms of the factors considered in the site selection process: geographic, social, economic, and environmental. Due to the number and complexity of factors considered for this purpose, a multicriteria decision-making model is often used during the selection process. From our study, it is observed that the implementation of a PHES project may come with several environmental concerns, that is land and water requirements, impacts on the fishery industry, aquatic habitat, cultural, historical as well as natural. However, we also observed that many of these concerns are being addressed with improvement in PHES technology.

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.

Wetlands are among the most vulnerable, threatened, valuable, diverse, and heterogeneous ecosystems existing on our planet. While they provide invaluable ecosystem services to our society, they have been declining globally for many centuries. Monitoring of these changes is necessary for implementing efficient conservation policies and sustainable management schemes. Earth observation techniques can support the effort of monitoring, assessing, and inventorying wetlands at different scales with ever growing capabilities and toolsets. While the GEO-Wetlands initiative provides a framework for collaboratively increasing and utilizing these capabilities, global stakeholders like the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and U.N. Environment are starting to adopt EO-based methods in their guidelines and technical reports. Many challenges still remain, although different projects and case studies successfully demonstrate the opportunities provided by the growing data archives, analysis algorithms, and processing capabilities. Many of these demonstrations focus on local wetland sites. The mapping and inventorying, specifically of vegetated wetlands, on national or even global scales remains a challenge for the wetlands and EO communities for years to come. Collaboration and partnership between different stakeholders of both communities are key for success. Initiatives like GEO-Wetlands, in cooperation with global stakeholders, need to provide the framework for this collaborative effort.

The currently used water–energy–food (WEF) nexus philosophy and frameworks integrate the interconnections across the water, energy, food-agricultural sectors using a systems perspective. There are many challenges to model the interdependencies and trade-offs using a WEF nexus approach. Many tools and indices have been developed and used at the regional and national levels. However, there are few attempts to apply tools at a local and/or catchment level as described in this chapter for the Inkomati-Usuthu catchment in South Africa. The available tools were described according to inputs required and outputs produced together with both spatial and temporal scales and potential users. The data requirements for each sector were unpacked, and potential sources for local information are listed despite the wide set of data necessary. The way forward to applying these tools in the Crocodile and lower Komati river basins was considered in light of the facilitated stakeholder engagement to promote understanding of the scope of the WEF nexus and economic and policy implications.

The water–food–energy (WEF) nexus narratives is a collection of expert inputs on the concepts, analytical tools and case studies, and key developments on the importance and applicability of the WEF nexus as a transformative and circular approach. This chapter provides a detailed summary of each chapter, providing the reader with what has been achieved through the WEF nexus application. The chapters provide practical applications of integrated resource management and the pathways toward sustainable development. The main subjects of discussion include data availability, modeling tools, indices development, and metrics and their application across multiple spatiotemporal scales.

A combination of climate change and accelerated population growth is instigating some of the worst challenges that humankind faces today that include resource depletion and degradation. Both built environment and ecological infrastructure have been modified and are creating novel socioecological interactions posing the risk of novel infectious diseases transmission to humans. The experiences of the COVID-19 exposed the vulnerability of human health from wildlife and the risk of novel socioecological interactions on livelihoods. This chapter enhances the preparedness and improves the resilience against novel pathogens by assessing vulnerability and the available options to reduce risk through the water–health–ecosystem–nutrition nexus. As a transformative, nexus planning provides integrated pathways toward resilience and preparedness to reduce health risks on humans posed by novel pathogens. A systematic review of literature facilitated an understanding of the trends of novel infectious diseases and the available options to improve sanitation, nutrition, and adaptative capacity in the advent of novel socioecological interactions. The aim is to guide policy formulations to achieve Sustainable Development Goals such as 3 (good health and wellbeing), 6 (clean water and sanitation), and 13 (climate action). Risk reduction framing in the health sector through nexus planning provides pathways toward healthy environments and mutual socioecological interactions.

Over the past decade, the water, energy, and food (WEF) nexus approach has evolved to become a focus of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) development strategies. However, a lack of empirical evidence, appropriate methods, and qualitative and quantitative tools to implement the WEF nexus approach has been highlighted. This chapter describes the application of the WEF nexus approach in the Songwe River Basin (SRB) located on the border between Malawi and Tanzania as a demonstration of how this lack of evidence and tools is starting to be addressed. The basin is currently facing rapid population growth, which is leading to a considerable increase in resource demand and environmental issues and has been identified as a priority basin for SADC. The SRB Development Programme (SRBDP) includes several projects that collectively aim to improve the environmental and socioeconomic status of the basin. The integrated approach proposed to assess the SRBDPapos;s expected outcomes through a WEF nexus lens is based on the development and application of qualitative and quantitative tools that support decision-makers to assess feasible sustainable development pathways in the basin, and more broadly in the SADC region. This chapter focuses on the qualitative analysis of the WEF nexus system and explains the process of identifying the major sectors and subsectors involved in the SRBDP, the main interlinkages between them, and potential synergies and trade-offs assessing how decisions made in a sector may influence others. The qualitative analysis of the SRB shows that although the projects included in the SRBDP are expected to have positive impacts on the environment and the socioeconomic system of the basin, downsides that may have an impact on human and ecosystem health are also possible. Early identification of such issues can help to limit detrimental impacts in the future. In the analysis, potential Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), objectives, and indicators that may be addressed in the SRB are identified, highlighting the importance of applying the holistic approach to enhance and boost the achievement of SDGs in the basin.

WEF (water–energy–food) nexus analyses have become a rapidly growing field since the Conference on Water, Energy and Food Security Nexus–Solutions for the Green Economy in Bonn in 2011. They have the potential to help stakeholders and policymakers to better understand the interlinkages between the different components of a nexus system and lead to solutions that are socially and environmentally beneficial. However, assembling wide-scope nexus has been challenged by issues such as proprietary considerations and data evolution over time, among others. Earth observations (EOs) have a huge offering of data sets that can provide data for most of the components of a nexus at a relatively low cost and various temporal and spatial resolutions. Furthermore, the advent of cloud computing has made possible the processing of massive information. This chapter introduces the Earth Observation for WEF nexus (EO-WEF), a multisectorial information system to visualize customizable data and generate time series data at any location. Google Earth Engine, a cloud computing platform that includes data archives of regularly updated EO and scientific data sets for a period of more than 40 years, powers this application. The capability of EO-WEF in generating spatial data was tested in the Songwe River Basin case study. Overall, the EO-WEF application provides data for key variables of a nexus that can be supplemented by other kinds of data that cannot be captured by EOs.

Water, energy, and food are vital resources for human wellbeing. Yet, they are under increased pressure to meet demand from a growing population at a time of worsening insecurity due to depletion and degradation of reserves. These challenges prompted the formulation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. All the 17 SDGs are connected. They recognize that developments in one sector will impact other sectors and that any proposed development must balance socioeconomic and environmental sustainability. Also, as the three resources are the most impacted by climate change, they provide a close link between adaptation, climate system, human society, and the environment. The intricate interlinkages between water, energy, and food resources with the related relationships with socioeconomic development, healthy ecosystems, human development, and sustainable development caused the rapid growth of the water–energy–food (WEF) nexus concept since the United Nations General Assembly of September 2015. Although the concept existed before 2015, its progression increased after the World Economic Forum of 2011 after a presentation by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) in anticipation of the SDGs. This chapter discusses the evolution of the WEF nexus before and after 2015. The emphasis is on the importance of the concept in establishing the interconnectedness of resources and as a guide for coherent policy decisions that lead to sustainable development.

Most development planners and practitioners have often wrongly assumed that solutions for community challenges lie within the “western scientific knowledge” only. However, the recent studies have highlighted the relevance of Indigenous Knowledge to inform western scientific solutions. This study is on the Barotse Flood Plain of the Western Province of Zambia. Flood inundation understanding by the local communities has direct implications for their livelihood options and for the well-being of their households. The research found that there are a number of important local knowledge systems that are early warning systems based on observations of weather, water level and landscape, and animal behavior, which are widely disseminated through a specific communication network. The chapter concludes with a discussion on how the integration of Western scientific and Indigenous Knowledge Systems will better inform interventions to improve livelihood options for the communities within the Barotse Flood Plain and policy and practice within the developing world at large.

Central Asia section of Global food policy report highlights regional developments, climate change and its impact on food systems in terms of water use in the region. Moreover, provides options for crop diversification to mitigate malnutrition and role of water saving technologies for adapting climate change impacts.

Groundwater offers smallholder farmers in the lowlands of Lao PDR opportunities to diversify cropping beyond wet season paddy and thus enhance their livelihoods while reducing climate risks. This chapter focuses on evaluating existing and specifically developed groundwater irrigation options on the Vientiane Plain, and framing the findings around the livelihood priorities of different farming groups against a backdrop of agrarian change. Results show that cultivating a range of cash crops using shallow dugwells managed by individual farmers and deeper boreholes managed by the community can be profitable for farmers, while helping to increase the resilience of farming households’ livelihoods. Both options may also represent a viable investment option for farming households lacking access to surface water irrigation, and thus contribute to more equitable growth. The results identify drivers and conditions that incentivize and enable groundwater irrigation to generate positive development outcomes. It also highlights that farmers will not intrinsically engage in groundwater irrigation simply because a good resource is available, but instead, weighs up the pros and cons of a mix of biophysical, socioeconomic, technical, and institutional factors. Agricultural policies aiming to intensify small-scale groundwater irrigation should be cognizant of these nuances as they are critical to successful implementation and management.

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.

In many areas of the world, groundwater represents the primary source of water for domestic supply and agriculture, supporting livelihoods and lifting many out of poverty. However, the hidden nature of groundwater often means that its important role both historically and in the present is overlooked, hampering its effective management and putting future supplies at risk. For the benefits of groundwater abstraction to continue to be realized and sustained, the links between groundwater availability and quality, climate change, and groundwater-dependent livelihoods need to be explored and articulated. This becomes even more important with growing climate uncertainty and decreasing water security in some marginal and vulnerable areas, with an increasing threat to livelihoods. This introductory chapter presents the main concepts of this book, introduces the different chapters, and discusses emerging themes. There is compelling evidence that the development of groundwater has profoundly improved many people’s lives and continues to lift people out of poverty today. The examples in this book provide a wide variety of case studies from Asia, Africa, and South America that show how groundwater, often invisibly, improves people’s lives and livelihoods and promotes equitable growth. However, the studies also demonstrate how vulnerable groundwater can be over-used and contaminated, and how ignorance of the nature of groundwater is one of the greatest threats to its sustainable use. It is, therefore, of critical importance to increase investment in characterizing, monitoring, and governing groundwater, to explore links between science, policy, and practice, and to effectively communicate existing knowledge so that groundwater will continue to improve people’s lives for centuries to come.

Climate change and associated extreme weather events directly impact the functioning and sustainability of food systems. The increasingly erratic onset of seasonal rainfall and prolonged heat stress during growing seasons are already causing crop losses. As of late 2021, for example, Madagascar’s three successive seasonal droughts had put 1.35 million people at risk of the world’s first climate-change-induced famine. In the United States, the number of days between billion-dollar weather-related disasters has fallen from more than 80 in the 1980s to just 18 in recent years. Without adequate preparation, these weather hazards disrupt food supply chains by interrupting production and cause problems farther along these chains by raising costs and prices of processing, storage, transport, retail, and consumption and reducing business revenues.

Globally, the energy sector accounts for almost three-quarters of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and is thus responsible for the majority of adverse climate change impacts on rural livelihoods, including growing water, energy, and food insecurity and environmental degradation. According to a recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, annual investments of US$2.4 trillion (2010 dollars) in energy systems are needed to limit global warming to 1.5C. Such investments would support decarbonizing the largest polluters and improving energy efficiency. More and cheaper clean energy technologies and greater energy efficiency are equally critical for accelerating access to energy in underserved rural areas in ways that promote ecosystem health and inclusivity.

In Dhaka city and its fringe peri-urban sprawls water for domestic use is an increasingly contested commodity. The location of our research, Gazipur district, bordering the growing city of Dhaka, is the heartland of Bangladesh’s Ready Made Garments (RMG) industry, which has spread unplanned in former wetlands and agrarian belts. However, unlike Dhaka, the almost fully industrialized peri-urban areas bordering the city, like many other such areas globally, function in an institutional vacuum. There are no formal institutional arrangements for water supply or sanitation. In the absence of regulations for mining groundwater for industrial use and weakly enforced norms for effluent discharge, the expansion of the RMG industry and other industries has had a disproportionate environmental impact. In this complex and challenging context, we apply a political economy lens to draw attention to the paradoxical situation of the increasingly “public” lives of poor Bangladeshi women working in large numbers in the RMG industry in situations of increasingly “private” and appropriated water sources in this institutionally liminal peri-urban space. Our findings show that poorly paid work for women in Bangladesh’s RMG industry does not translate to women’s empowerment because, among others, a persisting masculinity and the lack of reliable, appropriate and affordable WASH services make women’s domestic water work responsibilities obligatory and onerous.

This chapter documents and assesses available best practices and technologies that can be employed to mitigate the release of microplastics from textiles and tyres into the environment. The chapter follows a life-cycle approach, discussing options implementable at the design and manufacturing, use and end-of-life phases, as well as options for the end-of-pipe capture of microplastics.

This chapter summarizes the findings from analyses conducted by AKADEMIYA2063 on local staple food market dynamics during the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa. With the outbreak of the highly contagious virus in Africa in March 2020, various measures were implemented by African governments to contain its spread. These measures included bans on public gatherings and markets; restrictions on movement within and between countries; closures of schools, restaurants, and hotels; and curfews. All these measures were likely to cause market disruptions and revenue losses for vulnerable groups by disrupting supply and demand of agricultural staples, either directly or indirectly. The objective of these analytical studies is therefore to generate evidence on how the various COVID-19 response measures have affected food supply and demand patterns in Africa, taking into account the locational characteristics (that is, whether an area is urban or rural, has a surplus or deficit of the commodity in question, and is in a coastal or landlocked country) and whether the commodity is perishable or nonperishable. Such evidence can then be used to inform efforts to anticipate and respond to food crises arising from infectious disease outbreaks and the measures implemented to limit their spread.

Access to sufficient and clean freshwater is essential for all life. Water is also essential for food system functioning: as a key input into food production, but also in processing and preparation, and as a food itself. Water scarcity and pollution are growing, affecting poorer populations, particularly food producers. Malnutrition levels are also on the rise, and this is closely linked to water scarcity. The achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 and SDG 6 are co-dependent. Solutions to jointly improve food systems and water security outcomes that the United Nations Food Security Summit (UNFSS) should consider include: 1) strengthening efforts to retain water-based ecosystems and their functions; 2) improving agricultural water management for better diets for all; 3) reducing water and food losses beyond the farmgate; 4) coordinating water with nutrition and health interventions; 5) increasing the environmental sustainability of food systems; 6) explicitly addressing social inequities in water-nutrition linkages; and 7) improving data quality and monitoring for water-food system linkages, drawing on innovations in information and communications technology (ICT).

Water markets are a potential approach for reallocating and improving the efficiency of water use in river basins in which water resources are under stress as a consequence of demographic and economic pressures. However, establishing water markets is not easy and to be successful a wide range of context specific criteria, relating to the legal and institutional framework as well as political and economic conditions, must be met. We applied the Water Market Readiness Assessment framework proposed by Wheeler et al. (2017) to investigate whether adequate policy and governance arrangements were in place to enable water markets to effectively operate in the countries of the Lower Mekong River Basin. We identify a number of key gaps and conclude that more conventional regulatory approaches, along with integrated basin planning and management, will likely better serve the communities and environments of 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 chapter highlights the key dependences, linkages and challenges of water resources management. (Many of these issues discussed are revisited and illustrated in the following chapters.) The first part introduces surface and groundwater management in the terrestrial part of the water cycle. Comprehensive presentations of key hydrological phenomena and processes, monitoring, assessment and control are followed by overviews of dependences, linkages and challenges. The manifold facets of intensive human/resource interaction and inherent threats to the resources base are exposed. Both sections present examples illustrating differing contexts and options for solution. The second part summarizes the main drivers and challenges of contemporary water resources management and governance. It provides a critical overview of different water discourses in recent decades. The role of benchmark and recurring water events, their declarations and intergovernmental resolutions are analyzed, and the key concepts and methods of implementation are discussed.

Humanity is in a planetary emergency. Agriculture and food systems are contributing to an interconnected global environmental crisis, with increasing risks, social instability, and conflict. This chapter examines the challenges, drivers, and consequences of unsustainable agriculture and food systems, recognizing these are diverse and multi-scale. It presents a vision for sustainable, nutritious, and equitable food systems. Currently, food systems are a significant driver of climate change, nature loss, and pollution, as well as poor health and poverty, with inequitable access to resources and benefits from food systems. Fundamentally, the systems change needed is to transform terrestrial and aquatic food systems so that they become part of the solution for sustainability, not part of the problem. A safe future for humanity requires radical transformations ranging from agricultural production systems through dietary patterns and waste disposal. The focus is on the broad categories of innovation and sustainable technologies considered to have critical potential in pathways that enable transition to a more resilient and equitable system. Governance is a key enabling condition and needs to be based on food as a human right, not simply as a commodity. Multilevel governance underpins the development and implementation of territorial food systems strategies, which can provide effective integration of multiple solutions. Humanity is at an existential turning point and has a narrow window to act now to reduce risk and avoid catastrophe. The rules governing our food systems are human made – and it is within the gift of humanity to change them.

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.

Water management in the irrigation-dominated Indus Basin of Pakistan is under pressure to ensure equitable, long-term, stable and flexible water supplies for meeting crop water demands, growing non-agricultural water demands (domestic and industrial supplies), and minimising adverse environmental impacts of one of the largest irrigation systems in the world. In this chapter, we focus on the irrigation system in Punjab by carrying out a sustainability analysis of its current irrigation water application methods. Cai et al.’s (Sustainability analysis for irrigation water management: concepts, methodology, and application to the Aral Sea region. Environment and production technology division, discussion paper no. 86, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC, 2001) analytical framework is used, which comprises indicators of risk and vulnerability, environmental system integrity, and economic acceptability and equity. The analysis suggests that irrigation water management in Punjab is currently unsustainable due to declining surface water supplies and excessive pressure on groundwater to support intensive agriculture and increasing demand from non-agricultural uses. Furthermore, climate change projections suggest reduced overall water availability leading to reduced crop productivity. Groundwater exploitation, unsustainable irrigation and agricultural practices, and industrial effluents are affecting water quality and worsening the overall health of the Indus Basin and its ecosystem. The cost of irrigation water management is economically not viable due to the high level of subsidies for technological interventions at the farm level and minimal water charges. The gap between collected water charges and overall operation and maintenance costs has reached USD 76 million. Water productivity in the Punjab is one of the lowest in the South Asia region due to use of traditional irrigation practices with low irrigation and application efficiency. Equitable distribution of water in the province has become a big challenge for water managers given increasing water allocation conflicts, especially between upstream and downstream water users. We thus suggest adopting an approach that is more inclusive of all major stakeholder interests keeping in view the competing inter-sectoral water demands in future and the ongoing challenges of climate change, urbanisation and economic growth. Such efforts are required to improve water use efficiency as well as equity in the distribution of water among users.

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.

Arid areas in East Africa are characterized by physical water scarcity. The physical water scarcity is further exacerbated by poor water quality (mainly salinity and fluoride) of mainly groundwater sources. Combined physical water scarcity and poor water quality makes the region a hydrogeologically difficult environment. Nevertheless, some viable high-yielding aquifers exist in East Africa. Difficult hydrogeology means that the best practices of reaching rural dwellers, towns, and urban centers require specialized financial, technical, and engineering approaches. The chapter describes the hydrogeology difficulty and the ongoing management strategies and its implications for the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene sector in East Africa arid regions.

Groundwater, the largest available global freshwater resource, plays a crucial role in human sustenance and global food security through drinking water supplies and irrigated agriculture. In recent times, many parts of the world have been experiencing discernable, large-scale groundwater depletion, and pollution. A large groundwater-dependent population, uncertain climate-reliant recharge processes, transboundary water sources, major geogenic-sourced, nonpoint contaminants, inefficient irrigation methods and human practices, and indiscriminate land use change with rising urbanization underscore the urgent need to develop models of sustainability and security for global groundwater, in terms of both quantity and quality. Climate change is expected to exacerbate these issues. We need to understand the main factors that control groundwater availability (quantity and quality) in a changing world, where climate change and human factors (overexploitation, pollution, economics, agro-food aspects and their socioeconomic side, and governance intervention) deeply influence water availability. Because groundwater represents a critical source of water in many areas, especially in developing countries, there is a need to analyze physical (hydrological), chemical (hydrogeochemistry), and human (socioeconomic) aspects within a comprehensive framework to define sustainability. Groundwater, which forms a large component of attaining the sustainable development goals, is difficult to manage (mostly not visible, limited monitoring of groundwater levels, recharge, and abstraction, poorly defined flow boundaries; transboundary issues; poor management of abstraction; uncertainty in groundwater–surface water inter-connections) and hence requires comprehensive scale–dependent governance plans. From an economic and governance point of view, there has been insufficient attention given to groundwater as a resource, which is both hidden but widely considered ubiquitous. Solutions, incorporating emerging and innovative technologies, need to be integrated with traditional knowledge, to develop future groundwater security.

Lao People’s Democratic Republic is a poorly developed, surface water-rich country that has traditionally given limited priority to its groundwater resources, which has resulted in a situation of inadequate scientific knowledge, technical capacity, and policies within the sector. This is slowly changing as the role of groundwater in socioeconomic development is better recognized. This chapter presents an overview of the country’s groundwater resources. It examines the state of knowledge, challenges, gaps, and barriers for effective groundwater resource development. It also reviews the scope and degree of success of recent efforts to enhance groundwater governance. Finally, it presents a concise outlook for groundwater governance, including policy, capacity development, and research perspectives.

Large cities in developing countries are facing the challenge of rapid urban population growth, which results in increasing waste generation. In Nairobi, the solid waste situation is characterized by low coverage of collection, pollution from uncontrolled dumping, inefficient public services, unregulated and uncoordinated private sector operators and lack of key solid waste management infrastructure. About 3,121 tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) is generated daily, of which about 850 tons are collected and the remaining is burnt or dumped in unauthorized sites or landfilled in the Dandora dumpsite causing health and environmental problems. The recovery of nutrients from the organic content of MSW for reuse in agriculture has the potential to address the dual challenge of waste management and soil nutrient depletion. This study assessed the economic and environmental impact of decentralized composting business model in Nairobi based on a comparison with the baseline scenario using an indicator expressed in tons CO2 equivalent. The cost–benefit analysis was based on data collected from existing compost plants in Kenya. To assess the sensitivity of the results to variation in input variables, a simulation model was developed using the Monte Carlo method. The decentralized composting business model resulted in a net GHG emission saving of 1.21 tons CO2-eq/ton of compost, being both financially and economically feasible with more than 70% chance of economic success. Assessing the economic and environmental impact is an important tool for decision making and to ensure that the business model results in desired benefits to society.

The Nexus Approach to environmental resources management is increasingly recognized as an important vehicle to achieve sustainability as spelled out in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In particular, it was argued that the Nexus Approach is key for the sustainable use of environmental resources under conditions of global change and provides a tool to deal with challenges of global change including climate change, urbanization and population growth. Building on conceptual considerations with regard to monitoring and implementation outlined earlier, here, we explore how the Nexus Approach may provide solutions for managing resources in multifunctional land-use systems and resilient cities. In fact, the resources perspective is essential for holistic management of water, soil and waste along the urban–rural axis. Peri-urban areas provide perfect examples of multifunctional systems with manyfold opportunities to closing cycles, improve resource efficiency and mitigate trade-offs. Cases described in this book provide both positive as well as negative examples of what can be achieved by applying nexus thinking and what goes wrong if you don’t. Key messages emerging include: (i) participatory approaches are a central element for successful implementation of a nexus approach, (ii) effective mechanisms of knowledge transfer are a prerequisite of adoption and upscaling of nexus approaches and (iii) the lack of economic incentives and lack of data represent major challenges for the implementation of a nexus approach. Overall, the importance of a nexus mindset of all stakeholders involved in nexus cases and of providing an enabling environment by nexus-oriented governance, including appropriate economic instruments, was confirmed.

This chapter aims to deepen our understanding of both the conceptual framework of mutual accountability and its best practices in the context of agricultural transformation in Africa. We do so in three ways: documenting the need for and growth of mutual accountability mechanisms over time, discussing how mutual accountability processes contribute to agricultural transformation, and examining the effectiveness of the mutual accountability processes of choice— JSRs and the African agricultural BR. In the next section, we provide a brief review of the origins and theory of mutual accountability as well as its application in African agriculture. Following that, we discuss how mutual accountability is being operationalized through JSRs and the Malabo BR, and the effectiveness of the two processes. The section after empirically assesses the contribution of mutual accountability to agricultural transformation in Africa. The final section provides concluding remarks for driving agricultural transformation through mutual accountability processes.

Water security has emerged in the 21st century as a powerful construct to frame the water objectives and goals of human society and to support and guide local to global water policy and management. Water security can be described as the fundamental societal goal of water policy and management. This article reviews the concept of water security, explaining the differences between water security and other approaches used to conceptualize the water-related challenges facing society and ecosystems and describing some of the actions needed to achieve water security. Achieving water security requires addressing two fundamental challenges at all scales: enhancing water’s productive contributions to human and ecosystems’ well-being, livelihoods and development, and minimizing water’s destructive impacts on societies, economies, and ecosystems resulting, for example, from too much (flood), too little (drought) or poor quality (polluted) water.

Investments in irrigation contribute to poverty reduction and enhance food security. This paper considers irrigation investments more broadly in the context of rural–urban linkages and thus examines rural irrigation schemes and peri-urban and urban agriculture using freshwater, groundwater and wastewater. We present case studies from East, West and Southern Africa, while focusing on the imperative of smallholders and of food security and nutrition. Evidence from Big Data and telecoupling show that, amid global change and sustainability issues, irrigation development strengthens connections between humans and nature with notable benefits to food security. Transforming investments to feed the future generation require priority investments in irrigation, solar energy for groundwater pumping, groundwater development policy, and integration of peri-urban and urban agriculture into food systems. Equally important will be no-regret interventions in wastewater reuse, water storage and groundwater buffer, micro-irrigation, and wholesale reconfiguration of farming systems, through anticipatory investments, to safeguard food security and sustainability into the distant future.

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 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.

Increase in salinity levels poses a threat to many hot and arid farming areas in the Middle East and North Africa region. In some cases, farmers install desalination units to produce freshwater to irrigate high-value crops. However, the produced reject brine is an environmental hazard since it is disposed off in the soil creating a vicious circle of salinity aggravation. The current work focuses on the financial aspect of using the reject brine, generated from reverse osmosis (RO) unit, to grow fish (Sparidentex hasta, sobaity sea bream) and halophytic species (Salicornia bigelovii, Distichlis spicata, and Sporobolus virginicus) for various uses in an integrated farming approach. Different water treatments (RO brine, RO brine mixed with groundwater, aquabrine, and aquabrine mixed with groundwater) were tested to evaluate their impact on halophytes’ growth and production. Irrigating with RO brine resulted in positive net returns for S. bigelovii, directed for fresh tips’ production, as well as for the grasses D. spicata and S. virginicus. However, more returns were obtained when RO brine passed through the aquaculture system where it got enriched with more nutrients due to fish waste. Irrigation with brine from the aquaculture system tripled S. bigelovii production (23.7 t/ha) and increased returns per ha of approximately US $76,000 over irrigating with RO brine directly, compared to the US $5571 and the US $1884 for D. spicata and S. virginicus, respectively. Halophytic crops constitute one of the very few sustainable options to improve food and nutrition security in salt-affected regions, contributing in lands’ rehabilitation and enhancing farming livelihood income. Halophytes also constitute an imperative component to consider for nutrient-dense production systems such as integrated agri-aquaculture systems (IAAS) implemented in desert environments, and the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats were explored through a SWOT analysis.

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 twentieth century has seen a dramatic increase in human uses of and human impacts on water resources, increasing competition over water as well as depleting or deteriorating its availability. Given its importance to human life and livelihoods, water is becoming one of the major foci of environmental research. The coincidence of water scarcity with poverty in many parts of the world makes it a focal point of international development efforts. With engineering thinking dominating over past decades, water management research has embraced more integrative approaches triggered by an increasing awareness of failures that focused on narrow single issues or technical solutions to address the complex challenges of sustainable water management. This chapter explores whether, when, and how more inclusive framings might enable more socially relevant and impactful research, and lead to more effective action. Discussion begins by establishing what a frame is and then de ning what is meant by an “inclusive frame” for interdisciplinary research on environmental problems. Seven frames in water research are examined; emphasis is given to how framings are driven by differences in normative and theoretical positions, which yields very different views on progress and how best to achieve it. Next, the use of more inclusive frames in academic or research contexts is explored using two examples which incorporate multiple normative and theoretical positions. Barriers encountered by academics and researchers, as they attempt to use inclusive frames, are then examined. To explore how inclusive frames can be used to address real-world problems, three cases highlight the possibilities and challenges in applying inclusive frames to research with the goal of informing action and practice.

Groundwater resources are vital for the well-being and livelihoods of most of the ten million people living in the Dry Zone of central Myanmar. Despite this importance, there is remarkably little known or documented on the nature, extent and use of these resources. This contribution has attempted to address this gap by reviewing the literature, gathering data and stakeholder consultations. The study reveals that utilizable groundwater is present across most of the Dry Zone, most notably in the unconsolidated sedimentary aquifers that are present across large portions of the region. However, rates of replenishment appear to be relatively modest, and use is limited by high levels of salinity and arsenic that are naturally present in some areas. The scope to access groundwater is generally good, and development has steadily increased to provide water supply for domestic, agriculture and industry. In broad terms, is would appear that prospects to expand groundwater use for irrigation and other purposes are good in almost all districts. In more hydrogeologically complex settings in particular, a lack of information creates more risk that may add to drilling costs. More detailed assessments and databases are required to support effective resource management.

Overall high annual precipitation in Sri Lanka belies significant spatial and temporal variation in surface water availability. The ‘dry zone’ comprising two-third of Sri Lanka’s land area receives significantly less rainfall and has high precipitation rates and a five-month dry season. Nevertheless, these regions account for the majority of rice production, the staple crop, thanks largely to the ancient hydraulic civilization based on networks of rainwater harvesting (irrigation) tanks. This manipulation of surface water resources including modern surface irrigation schemes continues to form the backbone of dry zone farming. Groundwater irrigation has remained in the shadows except in the North where surface flows are absent. This scenario is now changing as population growth; poorly maintained infrastructure; commercial agriculture; sectoral competition for water and climate change combine to exert severe pressure on surface water resources. Since the dry zone is also home to a large number of Sri Lanka’s poor households, and a close association exists between high poverty clusters and access to irrigation, the implications of water insecurity for a range of poverty indicators are clear. Not surprisingly, these pressures have prompted an increasing recourse to groundwater in several parts of the dry zone, as governments and farmers recognize the imperative to increase agriculture output, promote crop diversification, and improve agrarian incomes. Yet, with limited groundwater potential, limited detailed knowledge of this resource, and under-developed groundwater-oriented institutions, it is far from certain whether future groundwater exploitation can steer away from anarchy.

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 International Water Management Institute (IWMI) is a non-pro t, scienti c research organization focusing on the sustainable use of water and land resources in developing countries. IWMI works in partnership with governments, civil society and the private sector to develop scalable agricultural water management solutions that have a real impact on poverty reduction, food security and ecosystem health. IWMI is a member of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future.

The key resources that sustain life and the ecosystem (e.g., water, food, energy, and others) are linked in many ways. Action in one sector might have impacts on others, thus forming a policy nexus among them. The relationships between the resources were realized long back; however, the nexus concept is still evolving as a policy and development discourse with the involvement of many actors. It is generally considered as a “multicentric” approach, the advancement of “water centric” Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). This chapter presents a systematic review on how the nexus concept emerged and is now spreading to cover wider sectors; it then discusses key actors involved in raising the profile of the nexus as a policy and development discourse.

The water, energy, and food resources share a lot in common; they have strong interdependencies and are inadvertently affected by action in any one of them. Therefore, the nexus approach (integrated policies related to water, energy, and food) is required in the face of growing concerns over the future availability and sustainability of these resources. The nexus approach can help achieve at least some of the “Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)” (e.g., SDG 2, 6, 7, 12, 13, 15). This chapter discusses trends in availability and consumption of the three key resources (i.e., water, energy, and food) and interactions between them, and finally provides some reasons why the nexus approach can help achieve social and economic development goals.

Women’s empowerment has been a key tenet of international water security programmes. Discourses on water envision that enhanced access to water resources can transform disempowered women into successful rural entrepreneurs. However, because such programmes often rely on simplistic representations of water, gender relations, and empowerment, they risk perpetuating and exacerbating gender inequalities.; Our study unpacks the storylines that drive water security interventions in the rural Global South, based on the case study of a donor-funded project in Nepal. The latter explicitly aimed at empowering women by improving their access to water for domestic and productive uses and by transforming women into rural entrepreneurs and grassroots leaders. We largely used qualitative methodologies, based on focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews with households and key informants. Fieldwork was conducted in two villages targeted by the programme located in two districts of Far-Western Nepal.; Our findings show that the gender myths and models that drive water security programmes, e.g. women as individual decision-makers and entrepreneurs, fail to adequately consider intra-household relationships and negotiations and the values that give meaning to women’s agency. Such programmes tend to perpetuate predominant gendered norms, practices and unequal power relationships within households and communities. We recommend that water security programmes rely on more nuanced and context-specific understandings of women’s empowerment that go beyond enhanced access to resources and agency to include knowledge, critical consciousness and values. It is also important that such initiatives involve men and women – rather than exclusively targeting women – and initiate critical reflections on gender roles and masculinities.

The chapter discusses how adopting a holistic methodology that acknowledges socio-logical factors, including community participation, public involvement, social perception, attitudes, gender roles and public acceptance, would lead to improvements in wastewater management practice. It highlights the social dimension as a tool, a lens through which wastewater management and reuse can take on new dimensions. In this way, this chapter aims to shift the focus from perceiving wastewater as a nuisance that needs disposal, toward a resource not to be wasted, which can contribute to food security, human and environmental health, access to energy as well as water security.

The foundation of rice production in the dry zone of Sri Lanka is a hydraulic civilization spanning at least 2,000 years, and based on constructed small irrigation tanks. Dotted across much of the dry zone, and often constituting cascades, the traditional management of these tanks for dry season irrigation water brought together sophisticated engineering skills, deep ecological knowledge and social organisation around the practical need for cooperation and spiritual belief systems. While these small tanks are often referred to with respect to their centrality to irrigating rice, the staple crop, the use of both natural and built elements in managing the tanks and their surrounding landscapes in fact constitute a remarkable multi-functional system that has provided a range of ecosystem services for human well-being. Despite its ancient roots, the ecological principles inherent in the traditional knowledge shaping this system resonate closely with modern concepts around natural resource management such as wise use, sustainability, social ecological systems and green infrastructure.

The main objective of this paper is to discuss the economic aspects of genetic resources in addressing agricultural productivity in the context of climate change and variability in Africa. The paper synthesizes the published literature related to this topic, which has not been well integrated, especially with respect to economic improvements and the use of genetic resources in Africa. The focus is to understand the nexus between climate change, genetic resources, and agricultural productivity; the economic aspects involved in the conservation and improvement of genetic resources at farm-level use; and the adoption of these technologies to address agricultural productivity. The results show that climate change affects both genetic resources and agricultural productivity. The interaction of climate change and other stressors exacerbates the vulnerability of agricultural production systems and genetic resources. The conservation and improvement of genetic resources should address the urgent need to increase investments in conservation and the development of future adapted technologies. At the farm level, the focus should be on developing distribution and dissemination systems, including raising awareness and educating farmers on the role of genetic resource technologies in addressing agricultural productivity under climate change. Furthermore, it is critical to ensure that farmers have the means to purchase the improved genetic resource technologies to be able to use and adopt them. Efforts to conserve, improve, and promote the use of genetic resource technologies in addressing agricultural productivity should integrate the distribution, accessibility, and use of the improved technologies at the farm level and be integrated in broader adaptation and development efforts.

Key actors in various developing countries are often confronted by difficult choices when it comes to the selection and deployment of appropriate water governance regimes taking into account national socio-economic and political realities. Indeed, scholars and practitioners alike continue to grapple with the need to create the optimum water-supply and allocation decision-making space applicable to specifi c developing countries. This chapter uses case studies to explore the utility of free-market economics and developmental statism as two major paradigms that have emerged in the face of enduring questions about how best to govern water supply systems in developing countries. The chapter establishes that increasing pressure on available natural resources may have already rendered obsolete some of the water-supply systems and governance regimes that have served human societies very well for many decades. It is also clear that national water-supply governance paradigms tend to change in tandem with emerging national development theoretical frameworks and priorities. Each nation or local government feels compelled to adopt a particular framework to fulfi l its needs taking into account the broader global water policy context. While many developing countries have adopted water policy prescriptions from the international arena, national and local socio-economic and political realities ultimately determine what works and what does not work on the ground. Local realities have also helped to inform how nation-states domesticate global concepts for their local purposes. Thus, the choice between free-market approaches and developmental state-oriented approaches is never simple, and hybrid models are often deployed. Indeed, the majority of countries and municipalities rely on a mix of market economics and developmental statism to make their water governance regimes more realistic and workable on the ground.

The UN recognition of a human right to water for drinking, personal and other domestic uses and sanitation in 2010 was a political breakthrough in states’ commitments to adopt a human rights framework in carrying out part of their mandate. This chapter explores other domains of freshwater governance in which human rights frameworks provide a robust and widely accepted set of normative values to such governance. The basis is General Comment No. 15 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 2002, which states that water is needed to realise a range of indivisible human rights to non-starvation, food, health, work and an adequate standard of living and also procedural rights to participation and information in water interventions. On that basis, the chapter explores concrete implications of the Comment for states’ broader infrastructure-based water services implied in the recognised need to access to infrastructure, rights to non-discrimination in public service delivery and respect of people’s own prioritisation. This implies a right to water for livelihoods with core minimum service levels for water to homesteads that meet both domestic and small-scale productive uses, so at least 50–100 l per capita per day. Turning to the state’s mandates and authority in allocating water resources, the chapter identifi es three forms of unfair treatment of smallscale users in current licence systems. As illustrated by the case of South Africa, the legal tool of “Priority General Authorisations” is proposed. This prioritises water allocation to small-scale water users while targeting and enforcing regulatory licences to the few high-impact users.

This chapter explores the interrelationships between economic change and environmental issues, by showing how aspiration, education, and migration are variously connected to a loss of agroecological knowledges for rural young people. It reviews a series of case studies from Vietnam, India, and China on the implications for rural youth of changed aspirations and ecological and economic stress. The economic and cultural pressures of globalization mean young people increasingly aspire for a life outside of agrarian- and natural resource-based livelihoods. A consequence of this change has been the migration of young people to urban centers and a drive for families to invest in education. Thishasfar reaching consequences for communities.Those who stay behind face an increased labor burden, and economic pressures can be aggravated when the promise of improved livelihoods outside is notrealized. The chapter also points to the negative implications of these changed aspirations on the intergenerational transfer of agroecological knowledge. Thus, in relation to issues of environment and development, the chapter considers why this complex set of relationships between aspiration, education, and migration is important in the context of children and young people’s lives.

After introducing the objectives and outcomes of Humidtropics, and some institutional constraints the research program faced, this chapter offers a synthesis of achievements, gaps and challenges of agricultural research for development activities implemented in the Humidtropics Central Mekong Action Area, as well as a discussion of the challenges faced. This chapter provides lessons learned from implementing agricultural research for development in this region, and offers insights and recommendations that could support integrated agricultural systems research in the Mekong region and elsewhere.

After reviewing the main causes and effects of land degradation and erosion in the uplands of mainland Southeast Asia, this chapter presents several case studies of recent land-use changes governed by economic, political and institutional transitions, the expansion of teak and rubber tree plantations in northern Laos and southwest China, respectively, and of monocropping coffee in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam. We explain how these environmental disturbances are altering water and soil resources across different geographic scales, from the agricultural plot to the headwater catchment. Examples of coping strategies combining field trials and participatory approaches are illustrated with several case studies taken from research for development activities conducted in Cambodia, Laos, Viet Nam and the Yunnan Province of China. These activities were part of the CGIAR Research Program on Integrated Systems for the Humid Tropics (Humidtropics) in the Central Mekong Action Area. We propose solutions for sustainable agricultural intensification to diversify income, improve dietary diversity and improve natural resource management. The accomplishment of these objectives requires longterm involvement with ethnic minority communities that have been the particular focus in the target areas. The three-anda-half-year lifespan of Humidtropics in the Mekong region was a short period. It would require extension to maintain the carefully built and nurtured relationships with local implementation partners and local farming communities, and reach its full promise.

Canada’s provincial, territorial and federal governments face key water policy decisions about the process of water allocation and the outcomes associated with alternative approaches. Water allocation refers to the systems that are used to decide which users are allowed to draw water from which sources, for which purposes, and when. Especially when water resources are under pressure from competing demands, or when water quality is threatened, it is logical to question whether the available water resources are being used in the best way possible. Water allocation policy is a multifaceted and far reaching tool with which governments can in uence the structure of the economy and quality of residents’ lives. Water allocation decisions in uence numerous uses of surface and groundwater resources, including such non-extractive uses as providing environmental, recreational and aesthetic bene ts when some of the water is left in situ . This chapter illustrates a range of speci c water policy issues and considerations that relate to water allocation, and provides an overview of current practices in each jurisdiction. A number of challenges are highlighted that will have to be addressed if society is to bene t fully from the potential gains that effective water allocation can deliver.

Water scarcity due to increasing water demand triggered by population growth and irrigation expansion versus a limited and increasingly variable water supply as a consequence of climate change is presently one of the global challenges. This is exemplified in Uzbekistan, Central Asia, where irrigated agriculture is the primary source of the livelihoods of the rural population that makes more than 60 % of all inhabitants. Yet, socio-economic and ecological challenges keep growing, also due to the inefficient management of water resources. Therefore, options to increase water use efficiency were analyzed while considering the entire supply chain of products including the production, processing, consumption and trade stages and processes. These options were analyzed through an elaborated environmentally extended input-output model. The options examined throughout the entire supply chain included: (i) implementing advanced field-level water saving technologies, (ii) increasing crop diversity through expanding fruits and vegetables production and reducing the area of current dominant crops (cotton and paddy rice in downstream), (iii) fostering the further development of less-water demanding agricultural processing industries, (iv) upgrading production value chains by expanding the production of the commodities with higher values added, (v) reducing production and consumption losses, and (vi) diversifying exports by replacing the current cotton fiber exports with cotton commodities of higher values added. The findings may spur decision-makers to formulating strategic priorities at national level and coordinating water uses considering comprehensively technical, economic and ecological aspects along the entire supply chain, which is a key element of IWRM concepts. However, it is argued that increasing water use efficiency through technological and economic transformation reforms necessitates the empowerment of water users, raising their awareness for, and providing the institutional and market infrastructure, which is in-line with IWRM principles as well.

Wastewater may be defined as the combination of liquid wastes discharged from domestic households, farms, institutions, and commercial and industrial establishments eventually mixed with groundwater, surface water, and stormwater. Wastewater is increasingly receiving global attention as it is seen as one of the alternative solutions to increasing global water scarcity. Indeed, wastewater is globally being reused in many applications including groundwater recharge, industrial reuse like for cooling, environmental and recreational uses, nonpotable urban uses, and indirect or direct potable reuse. However, agricultural irrigation and landscaping is by far the largest wastewater use sector. Indeed, millions of farmers worldwide are involved in wastewater irrigation activities. However, wastewater contains a variety of pollutants and contaminants, which may pose health risks if not well managed. These pollutants include salts, metals, metalloids, pathogens, residual drugs, organic compounds, endocrine disruptor compounds, and active residues of personal care products. The kind and extent of health risks depend on many factors including the types and levels of contaminants as well as regional risk relevance. In low-income countries, risks from pathogens receive the most attention. This is because people in these countries are most affected by diseases caused by poor sanitation such as diarrheal diseases and helminth infections, so high loads of pathogenic microorganisms are often found in wastewater systems. Focusing on low-income contexts, this chapter presents health risks posed by wastewater irrigation activities and some practical examples on how these risks could be managed.

Although wastewater has been increasingly used to grow a range of crops for income generation and livelihood resilience in urban and peri-urban areas, irrigation with untreated or partially treated wastewater may result in negative impacts on irrigated crops, soils, and groundwater along with implications for human and environmental health through chemical and microbial risks. With the potential for environmental risks due to concentrations above the maximum allowable levels, the major chemical constituent groups that need to be addressed in wastewater-irrigated environments are metals and metalloids, essential nutrients, salts and specific ionic species, and persistent organic pollutants. To avoid potential negative impacts, conventional wastewater treatment options, which can control the release of these contaminants into the environment, remain the key to protecting water quality for beneficial uses in agriculture, aquaculture, and agroforestry systems. Effective legislation, monitoring, and enforcement are also essential and often neglected management strategies. At the farm level, some low-cost irrigation, soil, and crop management options, discussed in this chapter, are available to reduce the risk from contaminants added through wastewater irrigation.

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.

In developing countries millions of people live a life of subsistence agriculture, mired in poverty, with limited access to basic human needs, such as food and water. Under such circumstances wetlands, through the provision of a range of direct and indirect ecosystem services, play a vital role in supporting and sustaining peoples’ livelihoods and hence, their health. This chapter discusses the role of wetlands in the context of the sustainable livelihoods framework in which wetlands are viewed as an asset for the rural poor in the form of “natural capital”. The framework is used to illustrate how ecosystem services, livelihoods and health are entwined and how the ecosystem services provided by wetlands can be converted to human health either directly or via other livelihood assets. It highlights the contributions that wetlands make to basic human needs and, either directly or through transformations to other forms of livelihood capital, the support they provide to livelihoods and overall well-being.

The debate on growing water scarcity and the need to use the available water more efficiently among different sectors has once again brought in renewed focus in India. In this debate, a large part of the emphasis has been on the pricing of irrigation water, the sector which accounts for almost 80 % of the total water use but for which water is charged at a fraction of the supply cost. Low water rates, apart from encouraging the inefficient use of water, result in low revenue collections and contribute to the growing burden of government subsidies. Efforts to increase revenue collection through institutional reforms motivated mostly by international lending agencies have yielded mixed results. However, given the increasing demand for water and the resulting competition among sectors, there is scope to price water. In this context, the chapter aims to examine the issues relating to water pricing in India with a case study from Andhra Pradesh.

Climate change and variability will impact water availability and the food security of India. Trend analyses of historical data indicate an increase in temperature and changes in rainfall pattern in different parts of the country. The general circulation models (GCMs) also project increased warming and changes in precipitation patterns over India. This chapter presents examples of model applications in water management and crop yield simulation in India, focusing on climate change impact assessment. Simulation models have been successfully applied for rotational water allocation, deficit irrigation scheduling, etc. in different canal commands. Application of a universal soil loss equation in a distributed parametric modeling approach by partitioning watershed into erosion response units suggests that by treating only 14% of the watershed area, a 47% reduction in soil loss can be achieved. Simulation studies conducted using different hydrological models with different climate change projections and downscaling approaches showed varied hydrological responses of different river basins to the future climate change scenarios, depending on the hydrological model, climate change scenarios, and downscaling approaches used. Crop yield modeling showed decreases in irrigated and rainfed rice (Oryza sativa L.) yields under the future climate change scenarios, but the decrease is marginal for rainfed rice. Maize (Zea mays L.) yields in monsoon may be adversely affected by a rise in atmospheric temperature, but increased rain can partly offset those losses. Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) yields are likely to be reduced by 6 to 23% and 15 to 25% during the 2050s and 2080s, respectively. A combined bottom-up participatory process and top-down integrated modeling tool could provide valuable information for locally relevant climate change adaptation planning.

In the Upper Blue Nile (UBN) basin, there is very sparse and uneven distribution of ground-based meteorological stations which constrain assessments on rainfall distributions and representation. To assess the diurnal cycle of rainfall across the UBN basin, satellite observations from Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) were used in this study. Data of 7 years (2002–2008) of Precipitation Radar (PR) and TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) were processed, with analyses based on geographic information system (GIS) operations, statistical techniques, and harmonic analysis. Diurnal cycle patterns of rainfall occurrence and rain rate from three in-situ weather stations are well represented by the satellite observations. Harmonic analysis depicts large differences in the mean of the diurnal cycle, amplitude, and time of the amplitude across the study area. Diurnal cycle of rainfall occurrence has a single peak in Lake Tana, Gilgel Abbay, and Jemma subbasins and double peaks in Belles, Dabus, and Muger subbasins. Maximum rain rate occurs in the morning (Gilgel Abbay, Dabus, and Jemma), afternoon (Belles, Beshilo, and Muger), and evening (Lake Tana and along the river gorges). Results of this study indicate that satellite observations provide an alternative source of data to characterize diurnal cycle of rainfall in data-scarce regions. We noticed, however, that there are a number of constraints to the use of satellite observations. For more accurate assessments, satellite products require validation by a network of well-distributed ground stations. Also, we advocate bias correction.

Water is getting scarce in many parts of the world, consequently challenging researchers, policy makers and practitioners to design options for a more efficient use of these resources, especially in irrigated agriculture. Although technical-economic efficiency of potential water-wise options and institutional restrictions for their implementation in the developing and less-developed countries are well documented, little evidence exists about the incentives for farmers and regional development agencies to adopt the efficient irrigation innovations. A linear programming model for optimizing regional agricultural income was developed to analyze the impact of water availability, water pricing, and investment accessibility on water-wise innovation adoption and conveyance efficiency improvement. The model was applied to the case of Khorezm, a region in northwestern Uzbekistan that is part of the downstream Amu Darya River in the Aral Sea Basin. Model results indicate that improving conveyance efficiency is economically less attractive than improving field-level water use efficiency due to enormous investment costs for lining the canals. Water-wise options such as manuring cotton and potatoes, implementing hydrogel in wheat and cotton, and drip irrigation of melons and vegetables are among the most promising field-level improvement options to gain optimal regional incomes under decreased water availability and increased water prices. It is illustrated that despite the huge investments needed for a wide-scale implementation of modern irrigation technologies such as drip irrigation and laser-guided land leveling, their adoption will substantially improve water use efficiency, while their implementation costs can be compensated for by the additional revenues due to increased yields and reduced costs.

Improving irrigation efficiency is of utmost importance in the irrigated lands of Central Asia, such as the Khorezm region of Uzbekistan, since water misuse and subsequent soil salinization threaten environment, economy, and livelihoods. To this end, several field-level ‘water-wise’ innovations were selected, which are classified into four groups that address crop pattern change, soil moisture maintenance, uniform water distribution, and furrow irrigation improvement. The potential of these innovations to raise irrigation water use efficiency from its current low level was analyzed from a socio-economic and technical point of view with a focus on short-term measures to cope with sudden water shortages. The overall water use reduction potential of these options was estimated considering their adoption feasibility within the time horizon of one year. To prioritize the examined innovations according to their contribution to overall water use reduction and water profitability, ‘marginal water profitability curves’ were developed. This integrated approach could serve as a simple but effective policy tool. The findings indicate that the option of replacing rice by maize contributes to more than 50 % of the total possible water use reduction. However, while all the other options increase the total revenue, reduced revenues will be unavoidable when paddy rice is replaced by maize. Manuring provides the highest additional profit per volume of reduced water use, but contributes less than 10 % of the total water use reduction potential. With water-wise options as an immediate and short-term measure to cope with sudden water shortages, the theoretical total estimated water reduction at the field level amounts to 183 – 376,000,000 m3 or 9.0 – 18.5 % of the current total irrigation water requirement in the region. For coping with sudden shortages characterized by a water availability of only 60 % of the normal water supply, long-term planning and management of irrigation activities focusing on a wider adoption of advanced irrigation technologies are necessary.

A major challenge of urbanisation, for relevant decision makers, is the provision of sufficient food and water for the emerging mega-cities and appropriate peri-urban sanitation management. This paper focuses on the results of a project carried out by International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in three major cities in Ghana. The project was designed to provide decision support for nutrient recycling from organic waste in peri-urban areas, through waste composting or co-composting with nightsoil. Experiences of existing compost stations from Nigeria, Benin, Mali, Burkina Faso and Togo were taken into consideration to formulate the research framework. Apart from the technical aspect, the study looked at actual waste supply and its quality, a quantification of the compost demand as well as economic viability of different scenarios and legal implications. The analysis showed that from the city perspective cost savings are only possible if large volumes of waste can be composted to reduce waste transport costs while compost sale (and agricultural use) is not a necessity from the perspective of cost savings. In fact, despite much interest the farmers’ willingness to pay remained limited at the reservation price of US$5 per 50 kg bag. As this includes transport costs peri-urban areas will be those benefiting most from composting projects. Closing the rural-urban nutrient cycle appears unrealistic given the increasing transport distance; at least as long as smallholder farmers are targeted. However, the consideration of alternative customer segments and implementation of innovative business models could help in reaching different scales.

The present study quantified for the two major cities of Ghana, Accra and Kumasi, the contribution of peri-urban agriculture, rural agriculture and urban agriculture to urban food supply, and analysed how much of the nutrients needed in peri-urban areas could be recovered from urban waste recycling. While the majority of calorie rich food derives from rural areas, urban and peri-urban farms cover significant shares of certain, usually more perishable but vitamin rich commodities. With every harvest, the soils in the production areas export parts of their nutrients or soil fertility. Thus the “urban nutrient footprint” is significant and calls for options to close the rural-urban nutrient loop. Currently, between 70 and 80 % of the nitrogen and phosphorous consumed in Kumasi pollutes the urban environment, especially ground and surface water. Based on the available waste transport capacity in Kumasi, the entire nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) demand of urban farming could be covered, and 18 % of the N and 25 % of the P needs of peri-urban agriculture in a 40 km radius around Kumasi, if the already collected organic municipal waste and fecal sludge would be co-composted.

Growing cities and their demand for water challenges the management of water resources and provides opportunities for wastewater use in irrigated agriculture. In the cases studied, large volumes of fresh water are extracted from sources often located increasingly further away from the city, while investments in wastewater disposal often lag behind. The resulting environmental impact in peri-urban areas can have multiple consequences for public health, in particular through the use of untreated or poorly treated wastewater in irrigated agriculture. Despite significant efforts to increase wastewater treatment, substantial volumes of untreated wastewater are applied in irrigated agriculture in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Accra (Ghana) and Hyderabad (India). Additional options for safeguarding public health are required to allow the cities to maintain the benefits from already existing, but largely informal, wastewater reuse.

Urbanisation is increasingly affecting inter-sectoral water allocations. This paper looks beyond physical water transfers at the larger urban water footprint and how much it is affecting the urban periphery in the case of four cities in West Africa (Accra, Kumasi, Tamale and Ouagadougou). The results showed a water footprint variation between 892 and 1,280 m3/capita/year for these four cities based on actual and virtual water flows. The virtual flow through the food chain is outscoring actual domestic water consumption by a factor of 40–60 and using water resources far beyond the peri-urban interphase. However, the picture is changing with consideration of the grey water footprint. Due to limited wastewater treatment, peri-urban areas are the hot spots of water pollution diminishing their fresh water resources. The fresh water affected by the urban return flow easily doubles the overall urban water footprint. Improved on-site sanitation, especially with water saving and urine and excreta separating toilets would have a significant positive impact on the quality and quantity of the urban water footprint given that actual water availability is limiting large scale sewer connections for final wastewater treatment.

This chapter examines key institutional issues that are important to the recognition and sustainability of irrigated vegetable farming in Ghanaian cities. It assesses the informal nature of the business and examines current roles being played by relevant agencies directly or indirectly linked to urban vegetable farming and urban wastewater management. The chapter also looks at relevant bylaws, strategies and policies that have implications for the recognition of informal irrigation and/or the adoption of safety measures for risk reduction in irrigated vegetable farming. It also suggests options to facilitate the institutionalization of irrigated urban agriculture.

This chapter presents approaches tested in Ghana to mitigate wastewater irrigation-related risks for consumers and farmers from microbial contamination. The recommended interventions follow the WHO approach concerning multiple barriers along the food chain. Factors that could support the uptake of safety measures are discussed.

Access to debt financing (credit) is crucial to the development of urban agricultural production, processing and marketing activities. This chapter is based on a 2009 study 1 carried out in Accra to assess the practices of institutions and programs that could finance urban agriculture as well as the existing bottlenecks and opportunities in financing. Information is based on surveys involving 179 respondents sampled from financial institutions; urban farmers (not limited to vegetable farmers), traders and processors; literature reviews, stakeholder mapping; focus group discussions; key informant interviews; and a validation workshop.

The chapter presents the process and results from a project implemented in Accra by the Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF) Foundation to strengthen farmers’ organizations for innovative irrigated vegetable farming and marketing. One hundred urban farmers were organized into eight producer groups and trained on technical and organizational innovations along the vegetable value chain towards improved yield and income. Training was delivered through Urban Producer Field Schools (UPFS) on topics ranging from integrated plant production and protection principles, food safety and risk-minimization in wastewater use for irrigation to value addition for marketing. Farmers were also engaged in organized marketing, targeting niche markets.

Contamination levels of water and crops which exceed common standards are only a first indication of human health risks. This chapter shows estimates of human health risks from consumption of wastewater-irrigated vegetables based for example on dose-response modeling. The chapter focuses on human health risks and risk perceptions of microbiological and chemical contaminants such as heavy metals and pesticides.

This chapter shows results obtained from analyzing samples of vegetables taken at the farm gate and from selling points in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale. Microbiological data are based on a total of about 1,500 vegetable samples taken from different sampling points along the vegetable distribution chain – farm gates – and from different categories of sellers in Accra, Tamale and Kumasi. Fecal coliforms and helminth eggs were mainly used as the fecal contamination indicator organisms. For chemical contaminants, heavy metals and pesticides in irrigation water and vegetables were analyzed, while estrogens were used as an example for emerging contaminants.

This chapter describes the different irrigation methods and nutrient application practices used by urban vegetable farmers. Data are based on surveys conducted in Kumasi, Accra and Tamale. Recent relevant publications are also reviewed.

This chapter presents findings from studies conducted in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale aimed at assessing the quality of irrigation water used by farmers in and around the cities. Samples for laboratory analysis were taken from sources of water used for irrigation. Microbiological, chemical and other emerging contaminants are presented.

This chapter provides qualitative and quantitative information on the distribution pathways of irrigated vegetables, with a focus on lettuce, produced in Kumasi and Accra from the farm to the consumer. The data from a survey carried out in 2005 show the contribution of irrigated urban farming and the size of the beneficiary group in Accra, which is also the group at risk from crop contamination which has been quantified.

This chapter explores some of the financial and economic aspects of urban and peri-urban agriculture in Ghana. Cost-benefit analysis comparisons were made of farm finances of common rural, peri-urban and urban farming systems. Substudies also tried to quantify benefits for society and to cost externalities related to soil nutrient depletion, pesticide use and urban malaria.

The chapter describes the major sites of open-space vegetable farming in Ghana’s main cities. It also presents the principal cropping systems and characteristics of urban farmers involved in irrigated vegetable production.

This chapter serves as an introduction to the book and provides brief information about urbanization in West Africa, and in Ghana in particular, the general role of urban agriculture and the common use of polluted irrigation water. It describes our focus on irrigated smallholder vegetable production and our understanding of the terms ‘urban‘, ‘peri-urban’ and ‘wastewater’. The chapter reflects on some of the key challenges of the farming system, its dynamic and resilience. It also gives an overview on the structure of the book, the origins of the data and the main objective of this publication.

Integrating economic efficiency and environmental sustainability indicators is essential for designing policies for a sustainable development. Given the growing pressure on water resources, efficient water use becomes an essential environmental criteria for formulating adjustment reforms. Despite the wide use of backward and forward linkages as well as direct and indirect resource (energy, water, etc.) uses based on environmentally extended input-output models for assessing the performance of economic sectors, the common practice of presenting different indicators separately obstructed a straightforward policy interpretation of results. To derive a composite indicator that allows to direct ranking of sectors, we combined therefore a direct and indirect water use intensities with backward and forward linkage indexes by using the multi-criteria analysis method-TOPSIS (Technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution). The model was implemented to formulate sectoral transformation measures guided by sustainable growth objectives in Uzbekistan, Central Asia, which is a representative of an area with growing water scarcity. The results showed that the presently promoted crops under the state order system—cotton and wheat—and crop preferred by farmers— rice—are the least effective production options for reaching such a sustainable growth. It is argued therefore that unbiased support for all crops through adaption of the current state order system for cotton and wheat cultivation is needed to achieve a more diversified crop portfolio with an increased share of fruits and vegetables. A further development of agro-processing industries and livestock sector bears more potential for sustainable economic development than a further promotion of producing raw agricultural commodities. Investing in industrial sectors illustrated more potential than in agriculture related sectors when aiming at economic effectiveness and increased water use efficiency. It is concluded that, with a relevant sectoral transformation, Uzbekistan has high opportunities to cope with reduced water availability.

The changing role of the state and the increased participation of non-state actors has blurred the meaning of international affairs and highlighted overlapping power structures at international, national, and local levels. This paper illustrates how these power structures shape the hydropower decision making landscape in one of the world’s most dynamic transboundary basins, the Mekong. Using the Lao PDR as a case study, we highlight how international donors’ influence in the overall shaping of national policy and legal frameworks, the state’s positioning of hydropower development as the main source of revenue, and the emerging importance of private sector actors manifested in overlapping rules and legal plurality in hydropower decision making. While legal plurality reflects the inherently contested terrain of hydropower, it also highlights the importance of power geometries and the scale dynamics in hydropower governance. The growing role of non-state actors may be interpreted as a reduction in state decision making power, but it may also be seen as a means for the state to take advantage of competing interests, in this case receiving both donor funding and private capital. If international donors expect national government agencies to promote meaningful application of internationally defined socio-environmental safeguards, they need to create space for critical discussion and move beyond the current standardized approach in promoting sustainable hydropower development.

As urbanisation increases, so does the challenge of meeting water, sanitation and food requirements in urban areas. In particular, the management of human excreta from on-site sanitation facilities remains a challenge and continues to endanger public health and degrades the environment through soil and water pollution. Yet much of the excreta consist of organic matter and nutrients that are valuable inputs for agriculture. Recycling in agriculture has often neglected the recovery of nutrients and organic matter in faecal sludge collected from on-site sanitation facilities in developing countries. Exploring the high proportion of resources in excreta can provide a win–win strategy by reducing the environmental pollution, enhancing soil fertility and therefore improving livelihoods. Challenges to maximising these benefits include: type of sanitation facility used in developing countries, nature of faecal materials, prevailing treatment technologies which are usually designed for waste disposal not for reuse, institutional and market factors as well as negative perceptions regarding excreta use in agriculture. Nevertheless, urban and peri-urban agriculture presents a good opportunity for nutrient recycling, provided that technological and socio-economic strategies for optimum recovery are taken into account. The paper concludes with a description of successful recycling options that can contribute to improving farm productivity, using evidence from Ghana.

Agriculture in the Sultanate of Oman is mostly small scale and is a part of the traditional way of life. The majority of the population benefit from agriculture, however little. The 67 % of the population was in households that had at least one crop or livestock holding where the output contributed to consumption or income. Since the year 2000, the Government spent Rial Omani (RO) 20.1 million on agriculture and fishery development, and another RO 39.4 million on water resources development. Furthermore, the government encourages farming by offering land, machinery, and extension services. However, during the period 2000 till 2007, crop production has in fact gone down. In other words, despite being a capital rich country, substantial investment in agriculture, it is increasingly becoming a food insecure country. An indepth analysis of Oman’s agricultural sub-sectors shows that, household sub-sector contributed 27 % of the total value. Primary crop production in Oman in 2005/07 was 486.872 metric tons of which contribution of fruits and vegetables were 353,072 metric tons and 102,606 respectively. In comparison, only 26,206 metric tons of cereals were produced. The value of production of cereals and vegetables were 7.8 and 17.6 million RO respectively. This comparison confirms that Omanis prefer producing high value vegetables to cereal crops. In addition to vegetables produced locally, Oman imported 148,345 metric tons during the same period. Therefore, it is interesting to explore, if vegetable production in Oman can be further increased, resulting in increased income and near self-sufficiency in vegetables. If Oman chooses to increase vegetable production, then it has to come from a major shift in its current land and water use practices, because almost all of its cultivable lands and available freshwater are fully utilized at present. In this chapter we explored if the Salalah region of Oman could be transformed into Oman’s vegetable basket, leading to self-sufficiency in its vegetable needs.