Water solutions to manage risk and variability
Farmers and agricultural land are increasingly vulnerable to water variability and extreme weather events, which in many places climate change is making worse.
Climate variability is already a reality for nearly one billion people who derive livelihoods from rainfed and irrigated farming in developing countries. The more frequent weather extremes that affect them often coincide with shocks in the financial, energy and health spheres – together with hazards like pollution and pest attacks – incurring significant economic losses for individuals and society as a whole.
To help provide farmers with a buffer against water risks and variability – enabling communities to thrive despite stresses and shocks – IWMI´s strategic program on building resilience works with partners to devise research-based solutions:
- Improved water management technologies and practices that match local agricultural conditions, better enabling both men and women in rural communities to cope with uncertainty and increase productivity
- New options in climate-smart agriculture that offer incentives for sustainable use of surface and groundwater, and employ ”big-data” approaches to minimize risk
- Decision-support tools that enable farmers, resource managers and policy makers to accelerate the adoption of improved practices for flood and drought management
This research contributes importantly to the sustainable intensification of agriculture, which is the key to achieving greater food security, improved nutrition and other improvements in rural livelihoods.
Brokering knowledge for sustainability
Enabling gender and youth inclusion
Co-developing innovation bundles
Strengthening and sustaining the enabling environment
Enhancing capacity for system transformation
Fostering scaling partnerships
Cultivating scaling preparedness
Population pressure and increasing water competition in a changing climate require us to take stock of the availability and use of water across scales. Water availability not only influences farmers’ commercial prospects but also irrigation-related enterprises and agri-businesses. Greater water scarcity could jeopardize irrigation and agricultural markets while excessive water use can lead to declining ecosystems, water quality and soil health. IWMI advises development partners and the public and private sectors on all aspects of water resource availability and use through a variety of advanced modeling and remote-sensing products and tools, including 
The ability of farmers to engage in or expand irrigation depends on the prevailing socioeconomic, ecological and political contexts, which are often complex, non-linear and changeable. Overcoming systemic barriers to farmer-led irrigation development while taking advantage of existing opportunities 
A lack of affordable credit, particularly for women and resource-poor farmers, is one of the main barriers to expanding farmer-led irrigation in low- and middle-income countries. But 
Scaling farmer-led irrigation requires strengthening human capacity and knowledge exchange among all actors and stakeholders involved. IWMI takes an action research approach, working with national and international research institutions, governments, extension agents and public and private organizations to co-develop the scaling ecosystem and strengthen capacity to drive scaling networks and collective action. We support the