| Excutive
summary: |
The challenges
for the rural households in the upper catchments of the Karkheh
river basin (KRB) are similar to the ones in other dry areas.
As agricultural options are limited, wheat and extensive sheep
rearing dominate the landscape. Agricultural output is unstable
and usually low, due to resource degradation and unpredictable
droughts (e.g. the severe drought during 1999-2001). Irregular
rainfall on poor-vegetated hill slopes results in severe soil
erosion, downstream flooding and sedimentation. Consequently,
the lifetime of the Karkheh dam reservoir is dwindling rapidly.
These environmental constraints combined with their economic
remoteness make this southwest corner of Iran one of the poorest
of the country with a very high outmigration rate.
The overall goal of this research-for-development project
is to strengthen livelihood resilience of the rural poor and
to improve environmental integrity in upper catchments of
the dry areas. Due to the complex combination of biophysical
and economic constraints, it is not an easy task to strengthen
farmers' livelihoods. Besides the usual technical skills,
this also requires participatory skills, livelihood analysis
and strong inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional cooperation.
Most of these 'soft skills' are underdeveloped in the region.
Therefore, two main objectives are envisioned for this project.
Firstly, in the course of the project, we aim to improve the
adaptive capacity of the involved stakeholders to strengthen
livelihoods in these marginal dry environments in a sustainable
way. Secondly, an appropriate methodology will be developed
which will combine livelihood strategies with watershed management,
and which can be used beyond the study sites in a wide spectrum
of dry environments. The specific objectives are:
- Develop
a framework for evaluating livelihood vulnerability and
resilience in dry upper catchments.
- Identify
and evaluate watershed management principles for upper catchments
in dry areas.
- Build
the capacity of communities in four upper catchments to
strengthen their livelihood resilience and to manage their
catchments in a sustainable way.
- Develop
an effective strategy for outscaling and upscaling of research
results and lessons learned.
- Improve
coordination and process skills.
The research
process will be guided by the 'Integrated Natural resources
Management' (INRM) framework. This will be operationalised
by a number of strategies and a well-balanced effort between
diagnostic, problem solving and process tools. The research
work will combine a large-scale analysis of the KRB by GIS
and RRA, with a detailed study at four contrasting sub-catchments.
This project is only possible by a concerted effort of Iranian
research agencies, a development organisation and local community
organisations. ICARDA, CIAT and Leuven University will assist
the Iranian partners with coordination, networking in dry
areas, INRM framework, participatory approaches, specific
technologies for drylands and degradation assessments.
At the
end of the project, we expect increased capacity of the local
communities at the benchmark sites to improve their livelihoods,
an increased understanding on rural livelihoods in dry upper
catchments and watershed management principles, improved organisation
and research capacity for integrated projects, and a methodology
and toolbox to facilitate research and development in these
areas.
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