Achieving increases in water productivity
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Huge gains in water productivity are possible across the globe, but without better measuring and monitoring the effects of new interventions will remain unclear. Presented by Jeremy Bird and Julie van der Bliek
![Providing evidence to influence policy and practice
Focus on increasing agricultural water productivity to support:
SDG 2: Food security
SDG 6: Water security
Water accounting: raising awareness, identifying scope for increasing water
productivity, monitoring
Multiple dimensions of influencing change – some examples
Institutional/water governance (Central Asia)
Agronomic/water management (Punjab [rice], India [milk], Vietnam
[coffee])
Technology (Pakistan [laser grading]; China [on farm storage])
Nexus – (India – solar irrigation) - links to SDG 8 [renewable energy];
SDG 13 [climate mitigation]
Factors influencing adoption](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
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Achieving increases in water productivity
- 1. Achieving increases in water productivity Jeremy Bird Julie van der Bliek International Water Management Institute
- 2. Providing evidence to influence policy and practice Focus on increasing agricultural water productivity to support: SDG 2: Food security SDG 6: Water security Water accounting: raising awareness, identifying scope for increasing water productivity, monitoring Multiple dimensions of influencing change – some examples Institutional/water governance (Central Asia) Agronomic/water management (Punjab [rice], India [milk], Vietnam [coffee]) Technology (Pakistan [laser grading]; China [on farm storage]) Nexus – (India – solar irrigation) - links to SDG 8 [renewable energy]; SDG 13 [climate mitigation] Factors influencing adoption
- 3. Institutional changes for improved water governance (Fergana Valley, Central Asia) 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Water intake for irrigation (m3/ha) SFC AAC KhBC 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Number of WUAs created SFC AAC KhBC Challenge: Post-Soviet transition from centrally managed large irrigation systems to multiple smaller privately owned farms and decline in system management. Solution: 2002-2010: Water Users’ Associations (WUAs) created to improve water management through more participatory water governance. Outcome: Water delivery reduced by: • 17% in the Southern Fergana Canal (SFC) zone • 26% in the Khodjabakirgan Canal (KhBC) zone • 4% in the Aravan-Akbura (AAC) zone * SIC ICWC/IWMI/SDC funded project
- 4. Agronomic and water management changes Punjab Preservation Subsoil Water Act, 2009 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 08-May 15-May 22-May 29-May 05-Jun AverageGain in… 1.8% 2.4% 3.5% 6.1% 8.6% 9.3% Average gain in evapotranspiration (ET), and the percentage reduction in ET demand • Challenge: Over-abstraction of groundwater, falling water table Solution: • Delay transplanting date from 01 May to 10 June (for PR113 rice variety) • Penalty for defaulters Outcome: • Water savings: 2,180 Mm3; 7% of annual draft • Electricity savings: 175 million kWh
- 5. Challenge: Mixed smallholder farming systems - reducing groundwater levels Approach: Assess water footprints of milk, fodder and cereal crops – direct and indirect uses Solutions: Shift balance of production to more intensive dairy production systems with less rice area - offers the most financial and sustainability benefits Outcome: Potential for increasing output by $480/ha; reducing overdraft of groundwater Agronomic and water management changes Private sector initiative – milk in India (Nestlé)
- 6. Agronomic and water management changes Private sector initiative – coffee in Vietnam (Nestlé) Challenge: Coffee – 3% of Vietnam’s GDP, employs 2 m people. Water scarcity threat. Farmers over-irrigate. Approach: Agronomic water studies exploring deficit irrigation Solutions: Induced water stress to stimulate ‘cherry’ development – timing and scheduling is key. Farmer training essential. Outcome: Potential to reduce irrigation demand by 30% and increase yields from 2.4 to 4.0t/ha Photo Credit: Creative Commons, Wikimedia
- 7. Technological changes: laser grading for surface irrigation (Pakistan) Challenge: Inefficient flood irrigation, high pumping costs Approach: Pilot trials of modifying laser levelling to laser grading - locally available technology. Solutions: Precision surface irrigation for furrow and border strip. Combine with soil moisture sensors Outcome: An efficient surface irrigation alternative to drip and sprinkler. 11% increase in land productivity (kg/ha) and 12% increase in water productivity (kg/m3)
- 8. Liuyuankou Irrigation System (LIS), Yellow River Molden et al. 2007 Zhanghe Irrigation System (ZIS), Yangtze River Two systems, two opportunities (to improve water productivity), two different outcomes Alignment of objectives and incentives important: two contrasting cases from China
- 9. Adapted from Molden et al. 2007 Incentives and pressures to save or re-allocate water by user group and scale Adapted from Molden et al. 2007 Key finding: Policies / strategies for changing water use need to align the objectives and incentives across user groups/scales to achieve society-wide goals Two contrasting cases from China
- 10. Technology and financial incentives: combine solar powered irrigation with water savings, India (water-energy-food nexus) The opportunity • India has 130,000 GW of installed pumping capacity in the form of electric and diesel tube wells • Sustainable solar irrigation pumps with feed-in tariff for selling excess electricity to grid Triple wins: • Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions • Sustainable use of groundwater • Income to farmers ”Solar Power as a Remunerative Crop” - SPaRC
- 11. Some words of caution…. Efficiency gains at field level do not always translate to basin level saving Impacts of water-saving technologies in the rice-wheat zone, Punjab Province, Pakistan Changeinuse(%) Water Labor Fertilizer Driver for change may not be water – labour or other inputs
- 12. Some words of caution… impacts are not homogenous Lesson: When examining the contribution of water productivity to broader development objectives, not only must we look at the overall benefits but also their distribution and trade-offs “Water productivity interventions can either reinforce or reduce inter- household inequities” “Identifying pre-existing inequities in water access within and among communities will support better targeting of poor communities” Water productivity and poverty, Ganges Basin Clement et al. 2011 Water-saving myths and realities, Pakistan Ahmad et al. 2007
- 13. Concluding remarks • There are a mix of technology, agronomic, management and institutional approaches – often in combination • Incentives as well as polices needed to achieve increases in water productivity • Increasing water productivity at field scale is not automatically reflected in increases at basin scale. Need to monitor at a range of scales. • Be clear on the broader development goals. Inter-relationships between goals of water productivity – economic returns- equity and between water – energy - climate. • Effective water accounting and mapping of water productivity are needed to determine the impacts of interventions and contribute to the implementation and monitoring of SDG target 6.4
Editor's Notes
- Increasing agricultural water productivity to contribute to SDG 2 Food security and 6 Water security. Water accounting and mapping of water productivity are needed to identify where increases in water productivity could be achieved and how. This presentation provides examples of how water productivity could be increased through the following: Institutional/water governance changes (Central Asia) Agronomic/management changes (Punjab, India [milk], Vietnam [coffee]) Technology related changes (Pakistan [laser grading]) Nexus/integrated (solar crop - technology and financial incentives; Pakistan myth) Factors influencing the adoption of these changes (China, aligning objectives) and whether they have the desired impact (field versus basin impacts; water productivity increases and development goals; differentiated impacts) are also highlighted.
- Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the massive collective farms and irrigation systems of Central Asia fell into ruin or became fragmented. With the land reforms introduced, independently managed farm sizes have become much smaller and privately owned. As a result, the number of farms increased from few numbers to several thousands. The farm gates moved from main and secondary canals to lower level canals. Large numbers of overlapping requests from numerous smallholder farmers for smaller quantum of water for different crops, and the efforts to make water delivery schedules using existing method resulted in chaos, inequity, and unreliability at all levels of the irrigation water management. This has also led to a mismatch between water supply and actual cropping needs, waste of water and an exponential increase in the number of water-related disputes. The IWRM-Ferghana project supported the establishment of Water Users’ Associations following a hydrographic approach, encouraging public participation in water governance and providing capacity building of these newly established WUAs.
- Groundwater resources, believed to have played an important role in Green revolution-induced agricultural productivity rise in India, is under serious threat due to overdraft, especially in the food basket states. The Punjab Preservation of Sub-soil Water Act-2009 is such an effort to conserve groundwater resource by mandatory shifting of the transplanting date (beyond the 10th of June) of paddy to periods of low evapo-transpiration (ET) demands. The Act also has a penalty clause (imposition of fine and recovery of the cost of uprooting the crop) for the non-adhering farmers.
- Milk example: The government and private sector could come forth and provide credit facilities for small farmers to make the changes of agriculture production systems financially feasible.
- Coffee: The findings of this study indicate that there is a potential to reduce irrigation CWU and increase in yields in coffee production in Vietnam. However, this requires induced water stress through deficit irrigation, which depends on superior scheduling of irrigation, and management of other inputs and agronomic practices. A better understanding of on-farm water and input management is required, and farmers would need to be trained in these areas.
- Precision surface irrigation starts with taking some field measurements which range from physical properties of the fields e.g. slope, size and also properties of the soil eg. infiltration. These properties are then used in a computer model. The model allows a user to explore any number of alternatives e.g. dividing the field into narrower fields, into shorter fields, increasing or decreasing flow rates, the duration of irrigation etc. Then laser grading the field. Once the field is graded then further land preparation takes place eg. furrows for row crops or border strips for broadcast crops. The user/farmer can use experience or any soil moisture sensor to determine whether or not to irrigate. Using this technology IWMI’s initial set of experiments conducted in Pakistan over the summer of 2014 indicated an increase in land productivity (kg/ha) of 11.11% and an increase in water productivity (kg/m3) of almost 12%.
- Despite the relative water abundance at ZIS, farmers have had to adopt new technologies as supplies of irrigation water have declined and allocations to industrial and domestic uses increased. At LIS, farmers generally do not adopt water savings practices in rice areas, nor do system managers in LIS encourage water savings. In LIS, by contrast the pressures and incentives to save water are not consistent across actors (see Table next slide).
- India – use of solar pumps for GW pumping and selling to grid – providing a financial incentive to be more efficient with groundwater Low operational costs pose a sustainability risk to groundwater Connecting to a grid (net-metering of solar pumps) provides farmers with the option of pumping water when needed and selling surplus electricity as a lucrative ‘cash crop’ Need long-term guaranteed buy-back option for surplus solar power at an attractive price Climate change predictions reduce the number of cloudy days - favours solar energy generation ‘Solar crop’ counters negative agricultural emissions ‘Solar crop’ can increase financial returns for India’s farmers – even more than the rice crop, without significant land footprint
- Winners are the adopters, losers are the downstream users (including the environment). Equity issues. Increasing water productivity at farm scale does not necessarily result in measurable savings off farm, if net depletion of Et on farm increases (due to increased consumptive use from expanded area, or intensification of existing cropping) and it interrupts return flows that have in the past satisfied other users. Reducing diversions / entitlements on farm may reduce net depletion on farm, or may not, depending on the balance between the change in net depletion due to greater efficiency and the actual reduction in volume delivered.