presented at the Basin Focal Project special session in the 13th World Water Congress, Montpelier, France

1. Cross-basin comparisons of water use,
water scarcity and their impact on
livelihoods: present and future
Larry Harrington, Simon Cook, Jacques
Lemoalle, Mac Kirby, Clare Taylor and
Jonathan Woolley

2. Outline
• CPWF BFPs introduced
• Basins described
• Comparisons made:
• Water use
• Water productivity
• Water and poverty

3. Basin Focal Projects
Niger

4. Questions for BFPs in basins
• To what extent is water truly scarce?
• To what extent is water scarcity a cause of poverty?
• Who gets access to water and who does not?
• How are such decisions made?
• How efficiently is water used in agriculture?
• How can it be used more efficiently?
• Which water-related interventions help improve food security,
livelihoods, and ecosystem services?
• What are the consequences (for different water users and uses at
different scales) of introducing different kinds of changes?

5. BFP work packages
• Water availability
– Flows, balances, allocation, risks, scarcity
• Agricultural water productivity
– “crop per drop”, spatial variability, how to improve
• Water, poverty and food security
– How are water, poverty, food security and livelihoods interconnected?
• Institutional analysis
– What are the institutional drivers of water and food issues and
solutions?
• Intervention analysis
– What are specific opportunities and risks for change? What are the
likely catchment- and basin-level consequences of introducing change?
Who wins and who loses?

6. BFP basins: size

7. BFP basins: population density

8. Basins: rainfall

9. Basins: per capita water supply

10. Basins: water uses

11. Basins that are “wet upstream” have different issues
than basins that are “wet downstream”
Nile
Volta
dry dry
wet wet
Devaraj de Condappa
Mac Kirby

12. Water productivity
• Value of products and
services (crops, livestock,
fisheries, ecosystem
services) per unit water
depleted
• Water depleted is that made
unavailable for reuse, e.g.,
through evaporation,
transpiration, contamination
or flow to a saline sink

13. Productivity measures
• Different kinds of productivity measures:
– Land productivity (yields)
– Labor productivity
– Water productivity
• Where land is scarce, people seek higher yields
• Where water is scarce, people seek higher water
productivity

14. Understanding spatial variability in water productivity
• It is often difficult to understand spatial variability in yields
– Soil fertility, salinity, flooding, biotic stress, unsuitable
timing of operations . . .
– Wealth of studies on yield gaps, yield constraints
• Why should it be any easier for water productivity?
– Need to study “water productivity” gaps, “water
productivity” constraints

15. Crop water
productivity in the
Volta –
. . . up to 0.2 kg/m3

16. Crop water
productivity in the
SFB –
. . . up to 0.5 kg/m3

17. Water productivity in rice – varies spatially and over
time: . . . up to 0.8 kg/m3
0.800
0.800
response Laos
3
Laos
3
Water productivity, kg/m
Water productivity, kg/m
0.600
0.600
WP Thailand
Thailand
0.400
0.400 Cambodia
Cambodia
Vietnam
Vietnam
0.200
0.200 crisis
Vietnam Central
Vietnam Central
highlands
0.000
0.000 highlands
1990 1995 2000 2005 Vietnam Mekong
Vietnam Mekong
1990 1995
Year
2000 2005 time
River Delta
River Delta
Year

18. Water productivity in Karkheh [Iran] is higher
when animals are included

19. Measuring and improving livestock water productivity
Source: CPWF

20. Measuring and improving livestock water productivity
Source: CPWF

21. Ways to increase agricultural water productivity
• Maintain yields while using less water
– Aerobic rice
• Raise yields by using water that otherwise would be “lost”
– Input use
– Less evaporation, more transpiration
– In-field water harvesting
• Reallocate water from lower to higher value uses
– Across users in a basin or catchment
• Diversify farming systems
– Livestock
– Aquaculture
– High value crops

22. Ways to increase agricultural water productivity
Statement:
“ Efforts to improve water productivity should focus
on areas where water productivity is low”
• Not necessarily . . .
– Constraints ≠ opportunities
– It is often easier to increase crop yields in areas
where yields are already high
• the same may sometimes be true for water
productivity

23. Water and poverty or “water poverty?
– “BFPs have found that much more is known about the
state of water on the one hand, and the state of food
security and poverty on the other, than is known
about how they interact and influence each other.”

24. Water and poverty or “water poverty?
Statement:
“ . . . Poverty is due to water scarcity”
• Not necessarily . . .
• Counter-examples
– Dry Punjab vs. wet Bangladesh
– Dry Egypt vs. wet Uganda
– Dry Sinaloa vs. wet Chiapas

25. Water and poverty or “water poverty?
Statement:
“ . . . Poverty is due to water scarcity”
• Not necessarily . . .
– Floods
– Water-related disease
– Water allocation among users

26. Factors other than water that affect rural poverty
• Farm size or access to land resources
• Off-farm employment and remittances from family members;
• Crop selection and yields
• Agroecosystem diversification including livestock
• Access to markets and credit
• Market and transport infrastructure and marketing margins;
• Education;
• Inheritance
• Expenses associated with starting a new family, or with life
transitions such as marriages
• Accidents or disease

27. Water and poverty or “water poverty?
Statement:
“ Improving water productivity is the best way to get
people out of poverty”
• Not necessarily . . .
– May be one element in an integrated strategy
– Need an historical context –
• The broad process of development and rural
transformation
• How can water-related interventions accelerate
this process?

28. Water and poverty or “water poverty?
• Karkheh:
– Poverty reduced by rural-urban migration, national poverty
reduction policies
• SFB:
– Poverty reduced by out-migration of smallholder farm families to
urban areas or to work on large commercial farms
• Mekong:
– Poverty reduced in
• Mekong delta – diversified production for markets
• Northeast Thailand – off-farm employment
– Poverty concentrated in “remote highlands”
• Volta: poverty varies inversely with rainfall

29. Water availability, poverty, and rural
transformation
GNI vs Water Size of the circle is
50,000 proportional to the
share of agriculture
40,000 in GNI
GNI ($/cap PPP)
30,000
20,000
10,000
0
-500 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
-10,000
3
Water availability (m /cap)

30. Awkward conclusion
• Emphasize water-related interventions that help accelerate
– Rural transformation
– Equitable, dynamic development
– Employment generation
– (Without harming downstream communities)
• These may or may not be in water-scarce areas
• These may or may not be in areas with low water productivity
“You can do it; we can help”