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Introduction The CGIAR Challenge
Program on Water and Food (CP Water and Food) proposes to launch
an ambitious research, extension and capacity building program that
will significantly increase the productivity of water used for agriculture
(http://www.waterandfood.org/).
The program's interlocking goals are to allow more food to be produced
with the same amount of water that is used in agriculture today,
as populations expand over the coming 20 years. And, do this in
a way that decreases malnourishment and rural poverty, improves
people's health and maintains environmental sustainability. The
CP Water and Food is managed by an 18-member consortium, composed
of 5 Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)/Future
Harvest Centres, 6 National Agricultural Research and Extension
Systems (NARES) institutions, 4 Advanced Research Institutes (ARIs)
and 3 international NGOs. Theme 1: Crop
Water Productivity Improvement (IRRI)
Theme 2: Water and People in catchments: Enabling efficient and equitable water use Potential improvements in water management can be limited by the complexity and diversity of water uses and water users within upper catchments. Substantial modification in water use at one location influences the resource at another, so a systemic approach is required which links changes in catchment and basin-hydrology with the people who create it, and anticipates the impacts of complex interactions which occur between socially, economically or politically diverse groups. Resolution of the 'hydrologic dyslexia', that is, the institutional disconnectivity that occurs between hydrologically-connected people, will increase the potential gains offered by advances in biophysical performance. 'Hydrologic dyslexia' may occur at community, catchment and basin scale. It results from a deficiency of institutions that could enable more effective use of shared resources. It reflects the barriers that prevent 'collective' or 'coordinated' management. The complex challenge can be divided into three facets, each of which will need to be generalized: water and livelihoods; catchment hydrology; and social organization. These facets overlap within catchments, but the knowledge of processes they represent is not congruent. This lack of congruence presents a major challenge for researchers, but also an opportunity for new, integrating activities that can underpin significant and measurable progress in enabling people to benefit from improved water productivity.
This will be
achieved through comparative research at benchmark sites that will
identify opportunities and incentives for measurable improvements
in use of the water resource and by enabling the learning processes
that influence groups of people to adopt them. Water, Poverty and Risk in Upper Catchments Water is critical to sustainable livelihoods of both rural and urban poor through the range of services it provides. In addition to the provision of water for agriculture, sanitation and drinking for their inhabitants, upper catchments are valued for their environmental services to downstream urban, agricultural and industrial users. Where upper watersheds are forested, powerful external economic interests may conflict with both environmental and local economic objectives. These upper catchments are intrinsically risky, they tend to be difficult to manage, difficult to access and prone to processes of land and water degradation, such as erosion and landslides. Key research questions include:
Potential for Improved Water Management We assume that significant, if patchy, potential exists for increased water productivity within most catchments, through improvements in crop water productivity and better management of land and water resources. Better water quality and availability can, in turn, improve water productivity within neighboring components of the landscape, more equitable distribution among them, and enhanced incentives for protection of collective land and water resources. To recognize the potential for such improvements, decision-makers at all levels, including individual resource users, will need to be aware of possible gains, through the use of models, landscape design criteria, decision support tools and robust field tools for local monitoring, preferably suitable for application in data-poor environments. Key research questions include:
Enabling people to benefit from improved management of land and water resources Where the potential for improvement exists, what has hitherto prevented improvement taking place, and how can it be realized now? Gain is often obstructed by complex problems such as uncertainty, the lack of institutions to implement change, and possible conflicts between diverse groups of people. This will require unambiguous identification of the factors that influence people to engage in a long term, adaptive process of improved water resource management. People organize themselves in response to a variety of influences, including social, economic, political, technological and biophysical. In upper catchments, the implications on water resources of individual decisions may not be considered due to extreme uncertainty, externalities1 , or overriding economic or social pressures. As a result, many of the institutions and policies that influence how people use resources in upper catchments are not designed to maximize benefits from water. Yet, top-down, engineering approaches to watershed management have generally not been effective; precisely because they do not take into account the multiple uses and users of resources in upper watersheds. Key research questions include:
Expected outputs will include: (1) Explicit definition of interactions between water and poverty in livelihoods of residents of upper catchments. (2) Validated methods to assess the impact of better water management in upper catchments on poverty alleviation. (3) Inventory of effective land and water use technologies (best practices, identification of gaps, and possible key research questions) (4) Decision support tools to enable users to identify the likely consequences of land use change on water availability and quality and to diagnose specific land management problems. (5) Guidelines for adaptive, participatory planning and decision-making processes among stakeholders. (6) Institutional and organizational options for management of upper catchments. (7) Policy instruments encouraging protection of catchment function. Anticipated impacts will include: (1) Strengthened livelihoods of residents, especially poor residents, of upper catchments through increased water access and productivity, reduced vulnerability to water-related risks, and an increased recognition of the economic value of their role in providing environmental services. (2) More efficient and equitable water management resulting in global benefits for stakeholders including downstream and off site users. (3) Improved organizational mechanisms in place to facilitate collaborative management of resources within and outside the catchment, based on adaptive learning processes that incorporate scientific and local knowledge. (4) Policies and institutions that significantly influence the management of catchments and their resources which support the claims of the multiple uses and user. 1 Externalities occur when the consequences of a decision are felt by someone other than the decision maker. |
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