FU Berlin
Improved Agricultural Water Management In the Nile Basin
Vulnerability and Poverty in Agricultural Systems of the Nile basin
James Kinyangi1, Mario Herrero1, Tom Ouna1, An Notenbaert1 and Don Peden1
1 International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya
Poverty and access to water are linked through crop and Poverty in Shaded poverty
Poverty in Shaded
livestock based livelihoods. Increasing agricultural water mixed poverty pastoral and hotspots in
rainfed areas hotspots in agropastoral pastoral and
productivity can potentially contribute to poverty reduction. mixed areas agropastoral areas
rainfed areas
Poverty and vulnerability analyses:
Aim is to establish a broad understanding of poverty and how it
relates to water access in production systems in the Nile basin
Main objectives are to:
provide a review on poverty and vulnerability in the basin
provide an overview of poverty and vulnerability indicators
create links between water and vulnerability in the basin
1. Poverty: Areas shaded deep red with high poverty incidence are confined to the highlands of Ethiopia, central and
We map several datasets that are major components of poverty and southern parts of Sudan including the lake shore region of north western Tanzania. Together with northern Uganda,
vulnerability in the 3 production systems; pastoral and agro‐pastoral, these form hotspots of poverty, where poverty incidence exceeds 40%
mixed rain‐fed and mixed irrigated systems. Spatial datasets of poverty
and vulnerability (or their proxy indicators) were used from earlier
studies in the region (Thornton et al 2006) to map risks related to three Risks in mixed rainfed areas
Risks in pastoral and Risks in mixed
major factors: agropastoral areas irrigated areas
poverty and economic well being;
bio‐physical and socio‐economic conditions
water related risks
Poverty levels in crop and livestock production systems
in the Nile basin
Mixed rainfed
system Ethiopia Uganda Kenya Rwanda
(%) (%) (%) (%)
Arid 56.2 42.3 62.1 60.4
Highlands 63.5 42.5 60.3 69.7
Temperate
highlands 39.2 29 50.1 64.1
2. Vulnerability: The entire basin shows a high exposure to biophysical vulnerability. Deep red shaded regions are
Source : ILRI database (www.ilri.cgiar.org/gis/igis.asp) characterized by high human (>100 to 1000 number km2) and livestock population (>40 number km2) density. These
regions also show good market access (<1 km) and internal renewable water resources (>10,000 mm3/year). This
The table shows the range in poverty levels is large (29‐70%) and the variability in the
indicates that the intensive agricultural systems are still vulnerable to severe biophysical shocks
number of people living below the poverty line is a manifestation of the complex
geographical as well as socioeconomic characteristics of the countries in the basin
Water related risks in Water related risks in mixed Water related risks in
pastoral and agropastoral rainfed areas mixed irrigated areas
Summary: areas
From the poverty maps in (1) poor income and economic well‐being in
the basin is partly attributable to a high dependency on rain‐fed
agriculture. The highest risk of exposure to rainfall variation is in pastoral
and agro‐pastoral systems but many poor people are still found in mixed
rain‐fed systems.
There is a lower risk of rainfall variation in the highlands as well as lake
Victoria sub‐basin but for these areas, mapping hotspots of biophysical
vulnerability in (2) shows a low potential to adapt to changing water
conditions since widespread poverty is still unexplained by better access
to markets.
For social risks (3), there is increasing exposure to diseases and the levels 3. Water related risks: Overall, mixed irrigated systems show a low exposure to water related hazards and negative
attributes for all four indicators. This suggests that the all of the areas of pastoral, agro‐pastoral and mixed rainfed
of child malnutrition is partly due to low institutional capacity to cope agriculture are highly vulnerable to water related risks while mixed irrigated agricultural systems are less vulnerable
with the negative impacts of low agricultural water management.
For more information contact: e‐mail address
d.molden@cgiar.org