INTERNATIONAL WATER MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE �� ���� �� � � �� ����� ��� �� � ���� �� �� �� ����� Water for food, nature and rural livelihoods Scientific thinking and results. People behind the research. Publications and outputs International Water Management Institute �� �� �� � ��� � � � �� � � � � � � � � � � �� ����� �� � � � � � � � � � �� � � � � � � � � � � � � IWMI Addresses Headquarters Pakistan Nepal Cote d’Ivoire Kenya South Africa Address: P O Box 2075, Colombo, Sri Lanka Telephone: (94-1) 867404, 869080, 869081, 872178, 872181 Fax: (94-1) 866854 E-mail: iwmi@cgiar.org Address: IWMI, 12 KM, Multan Road, Chowk Thokar Niaz Baig, Lahore 53700, Pakistan Telephone: (92-42) 5410050/53 (4 lines) Fax: (92-42) 5410054 E-mail: iwmi-pak@cgiar.org Contact: Mr. Krishna Prasad Address: IWMI, Rm. 413, Department of Irrigation Building, GPO 8975, EPC 416, Katmandu, Nepal Telephone: (977-1) 535382, Ext. 486 Fax: (977-1) 523996 E-mail: k.prasad@cgiar.org Contact: Dr. Wilfried Hundertmark Address: IWMI, c/o WARDA, 01 B.P. 2551, Bouaké 01, Côte d’Ivoire Telephone: (255) 31634514 Fax: (225) 31634714 E-mail: w.hundertmark@cgiar.org Contact: Dr. Clifford Mutero Address: IWMI, c/o ICRAF, Box 30677, Nairobi, Kenya Telephone: 254-2-521450 Fax: 254-2-521001 E-mail: h.blank@cgiar.org Contact: Ms. Marna de Lange Address: PO Box 99189, Garsfontein 0042, South Africa Telephone: 27-12-807-6523 Fax: 27-12-8085349 E-mail: m.delange@cgiar.org www.iwmi.org Annual Report 1999-2000 INTERNATIONAL WATER MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE Annual Report 1999-2000 Art Direction & Graphic Design: Nulun Harasgama and Kithsiri Jayakody, IWMI Letter from the Board Chair 2 Director General’s Comment 4 Research Papers and Concepts 8 The People Behind the Research 50 Institute Staff 54 Publications 56 Donors and Board of Governors 62 Financial Overview 64 International Water Management Institute 2 From IIMI to IWMI — via two ‘irrigation revolutions’ This 1999–2000 Annual Report marks the transition between the Institute’s outgoing Director General, David Seckler and the incoming DG, Frank Rijsberman. Under David Seckler’s leadership the International Irrigation Manage- ment Institute (IIMI) was transformed to the International Water Man- agement Institute (IWMI). Our research focus has been widened to a comprehensive view of water used for food production and the gen- eration of rural livelihoods. Irrigated agriculture remains our core busi- ness, but we look at it in the context of other uses and the environment. In addition, we are looking at the changing face of irrigation. Since IIMI was originally established to improve the performance of large, public-sector irrigation systems—there have been two revolutions in the world of irrigation. First, the development of groundwater irrigation using tubewells with diesel or electric pumps has had a tremendous impact. These investments were largely made by private farmers. In India we estimate that, today, more than 50 percent of irrigated agriculture depends on groundwater. But also, where tail-end farmers were inadequately served by the canal irriga- tion systems in the past, many now use groundwater for supplemental irrigation to achieve substantially higher production levels. Second, we are witnessing an emerging revolution based on micro-irrigation. A range of affordable small-scale technologies, from micro-lifting devices such as treadle pumps to affordable drip irrigation systems, allows poor farmers to grow high-value, labor-intensive crops on small plots. Irrigated agriculture is changing more rapidly than its public perception. IWMI fosters and documents the changes, and analyzes their impact at the basin scale—on agriculture, poverty, health and the environment. This is the new IWMI that has developed under David Seckler’s leadership. His leadership received the highest praise from our five-yearly External Program Management Review (the 1999–2000 EPMR). International Water Management Institute 3 We are proud that our external review concluded: “….over the past six years IWMI has trans- formed itself from an institution focusing on irrigation management and involved in a com- bination of research and technical assistance activities into a much more research- oriented institution...” —and that it has created a niche for itself in specific research areas related to water resources management and poverty. The review concluded “….IWMI, led by David Seckler, and ably supported by his senior management team and by IWMI staff, and with the general support of the Board, deserves much credit for this achievement….”. Our transformation from IIMI to IWMI—that was in progress for several years—was for- mally capped by the Parliament of Sri Lanka on 18 August 2000, when it voted into Law the revised Act approving the change in name. We are looking forward to a new era for IWMI—which will no doubt be marked by contin- ued rapid change—under the leadership of Professor Frank Rijsberman. He comes to us as one of the leaders of the World Water Vision and World Water Forum process. IWMI was a key contributor to the scenarios developed for the Vision and leader of the Ground- water session at the Forum. We were invigorated by this process. It brought together the largest-ever number of people concerned about water—both from inside and outside the traditional water world. This initiative put ‘water’ on the global radar screen. Yes, water resources management is one of the critical issues for the coming decades. And this is illustrated by increasing recognition of this fact in the international agricultural research community. One after the other of our sister CGIAR institutes are ranking water issues among their top priorities. We in IWMI are looking forward with confidence to a future in which many things— including the CGIAR itself—will change. But the importance and urgency of our mandate are clearly reaffirmed. In partnership with many others, we expect to have a major impact toward productive, equitable and sustainable use of water resources. Klaas Jan Beek Chairman of the Board of Governors International Water Management Institute 4 How much irrigation do we really need? Shortly after being appointed at IWMI in March of 2000, I stood in for David Seckler in the plenary session on Water for Food and Rural Development at the 2nd World Water Fo- rum, and I asked the question: “How much irrigation do we really need?” Both the intensity and the diversity of the reactions that I received—and continue to re- ceive—might surprise you. Probably the most disappointing result of the Vision and Forum process was that we did not really manage to create a genuine dialogue between those for and against irrigation. These two camps are equally deeply convinced that irrigation is an absolute necessity and needs to be expanded and that irrigation is a waste of precious water, has cost the public purse billions and has not delivered on its promise. And yet, both the Vision1 and the Framework for Action2 conclude that resolving this issue is the most critical for sustainable development of water resources in the coming decades. Global Dialogue and Comprehensive Assessment IWMI can be relevant to this debate in several ways, and these are worked out in our new Strategic Plan.3 First, IWMI has offered to initiate—and possibly facilitate—a dialogue among the main stakeholders. To this end we are organizing—jointly with FAO, GWP, ICID, IUCN, and WHO—an exploratory workshop in Colombo in December. 1Cosgrove and Rijsberman. 2000. The World Water Vision: Making Water Everybody’s Business. Earthscan Publications, London. 2Global Water Partnership Framework for Action Unit. 2000. Framework for Action: Towards a Water Secure World. GWP, Stockholm. 3The latest draft is available on our website: www.iwmi.org. Approval of the Plan is expected at our Board meeting in December 2000. Water for food and International Water Management Institute 5 Second, we are preparing for a Comprehensive Assessment of Irrigated Agriculture (1950– 2000). We expect that if we—with partners, of course—are able to provide an authorita- tive assessment, deemed credible by all stakeholders, this will be an important input to the debate on the future of irrigation. Such an assessment would deal not only with the beneficial impacts of the investments in irrigation on food production and rural livelihoods as well as with all public and private costs involved, but also with the costs in terms of people displaced, and ecosystems destroyed and affected. One of the difficult parts in such an assessment will be to separate the impacts of investments in water from the invest- ments in genetic improvement in their joint impact on increased productivity in agricul- ture. This will be a task that—if anybody can—should be done jointly by the institutes of the CGIAR, possibly as a Task Force that might replace the System-Wide Initiative on Wa- ter Management. Increased Emphasis on Groundwater Management and Smallholder Farming Even as IWMI reports on its achievements in 1999–2000, we are preparing an effective contribution in the years to come. The emerging research themes in the new strategic plan focus on: • Integrated water resources management in irrigation, including the dialogue and com- prehensive assessment outlined above, but maintaining IWMI’s traditional strength in management of irrigation sys- tems. • Smallholder land and water management, with a focus on poor farmers and an approach that includes watersheds, sustainable land management, micro-irrigation and rainwater harvesting. • Sustainable groundwater management, also included in the two themes above, but sufficiently important to warrant special focus, both related to groundwater assessment and modeling as well as groundwater policy and management. • Water resources policies and institutions, where maintaining strengths in community level (farmer-) organizations, will go hand-in-hand with strengthening our expertise in basin-level institutions and conflict management—all with a strong policy focus. • Health and environment, where we will maintain our strength in health impacts of water management—for example on malaria—while strengthening our environmental work on the interface of ecosystems and irrigated agriculture. environmental security International Water Management Institute 6 New Programs in Southern Africa and India In line with the increased focus in the CGIAR on poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, IWMI has recently closed its offices in Turkey and Mexico, and is strengthening its programs in the SADC (Southern Africa Development Committee) and SAARC (South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation) regions. The agreement with the South African gov- ernment that will formally allow IWMI to open a sub-Saharan Africa office in South Africa will be signed during ICW 2000. In 2001, we also expect to expand our activities in In- dia significantly. This will be done administratively through close cooperation with ICRISAT, which will allow for highly efficient operations. Assessing Impacts and Benchmark Basins The majority of IWMI’s work to date has directly impacted the managers of irrigation sys- tems—both farmers and managers in irrigation agencies. In recent years, IWMI has also focused on making high-impact research reports widely available in printed and electronic formats. While all of this is useful, and will be continued, it needs to be complemented by ways to reach larger audiences both faster and with lasting impacts. The two new pathways that IWMI will explore vigorously are: • Closer cooperation with development NGOs that have the means to reach large num- bers of villages and farmers directly—with IWMI-produced knowledge or interventions. • Actively incorporating IWMI-produced international public goods research results into the curricula of universities that can pass these on to generations of new managers and scientists. At the same time, IWMI will assess its own impacts more actively. The methodologies IWMI has developed to monitor irrigation system performance, as well as new methodolo- gies for benchmarking, may also be used to measure the impact of IWMI research. As- sessing impact does require long-term monitoring. To this end IWMI plans to develop and expand the concept of benchmark basins. These are basins where IWMI will make a com- mitment to long-term research in partnership with local organizations. Partnerships There is considerable scope for IWMI to improve its effectiveness and impact through stron- ger and deeper partnerships in various forms. First, we see rapidly increasing cooperation within the CGIAR, both in terms of regional integration and harmonization of CG-institute research agendas—drawn up in consultation with stakeholders—and in terms of harmo- nization of administrative policies and procedures. The latter can result in system-wide policies—such as personnel policies—or a shared CG-wide Intranet. In any case, we see International Water Management Institute 7 considerable scope for both increased effectiveness and increased efficiency, whatever form the current reorganization within the CGIAR eventually takes. Second, whilst we have many relationships of various forms with the national agricultural research systems, we think we can considerably deepen substantive partnerships with a limited number of research insti- tutes. Third, NGOs and universities can become more direct partners in delivering the impact of IWMI research. Fourth and finally, IWMI is developing its profile in the water world outside agriculture research, focusing on ‘non-ag’ water research as well as water-environment research. Two programs that we have targeted to link into the world of ‘mainstream’ water research are the UN World Water Development Report and the new Hydrology for Environment, Life and Policy (HELP) program. Partnerships on environmental research target the Millennium Assessment program and a rapidly developing relationship with IUCN. Gender and Diversity: More Young Researchers from the South Given the relatively large group of senior scientists currently at IWMI, there is considerable scope to expand the group of young scientists (Postdocs and up) while maintaining a bal- ance. Through a focus on young scientists from the South—with recently completed doc- toral research in our key areas of interest—we are increasing our science capacity, reduc- ing our overheads and getting a better representation from the countries where we want to work. A recruitment drive in the second half of 2000 has allowed us to appoint an excellent group of young researchers, all from Asia and Africa. We have high expectations of the stimulus to our research that this group will provide. At the same time, this policy will increase the representation from the South in our scien- tific cadre. During the five years of our new Strategic Plan, I target the percentage of sci- entists at IWMI from the South to rise to above, and probably considerably above, 50 percent. I also target the percentage of female scientists to rise to above 33 percent— including in-senior scientist and management positions. The International Water Management Institute is ready for the New Millenium—for a sig- nificant contribution to integrated management of water and land resources for food secu- rity, rural livelihoods and nature conservation. Frank Rijsberman Director General International Water Management Institute 8 The research context: W International Water Management Institute 9 Water Supply and Demand, 1995 to 2025 David Seckler and Upali Amarasinghe Prophecy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks. Mark Twain, Following the Equator Water scarcity is determined by a variety of factors. In this paper we summarize some key issues for water management that will influence the degree of scarcity that different countries and regions will face in the coming 25 years. These questions are covered in detail in the IWMI monograph that was published as the Institute’s contribution to the World Water Vision’s component on Water for Food and Rural Development. The follow- ing is extracted from the monograph, which can be read at www.iwmi.org (IWMI’s con- tribution to the World Water Vision). Over the past four years, the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) has been developing scenarios of water supply and demand for 2025. Since the first report on this subject, the analysis and data have been refined through the development of PODIUM, the Policy Interactive Dialogue Model. The PODIUM is designed to simulate al- ternative scenarios of the future. The results presented here are based on what we call the basic scenario. The basic scenario is rather optimistic. Within an overall framework of social, technical and economic feasibility, it relies on substantial investments and changes in policies, in- stitutions and management systems intended to achieve four major objectives: • Achieve an adequate level of per capita food consumption, partly through increased irrigation, to substantially reduce malnutrition and the most extreme forms of poverty. • Provide sufficient water to the domestic and industrial sectors to meet basic needs and economic demands for water in 2025. • Increase food security and rural income in countries where a large percentage of poor people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods through agricultural development and protection from excessive (and often highly subsidized) agricultural imports. Water scarcity and major issues International Water Management Institute 10 • Introduce and enforce strong policies and programs to increase water quality and sup- port environmental uses of water. Realizing these objectives requires three major actions in the field of water resources and irrigation management in water-scarce countries: • Greatly increase the productivity of water resources use. • After productivity is increased, there generally remains a need for substantial increases in the amount of developed water supplies. • Water resources must be developed with substantially reduced social and environmen- tal costs than in the past—and people must be willing to pay the increased financial costs this policy necessarily entails. Water Scarcity As our water scarcity map shows, we have grouped the forty-five countries into three ba- sic categories of water scarcity. Group I represents countries that face physical water scarcity in 2025. This means that, even with the highest feasible efficiency and productivity of water use, these countries do not have sufficient water resources to meet their agricultural, domestic, industrial and en- vironmental needs in 2025. Indeed, many of these countries cannot even meet their present needs. Their only options are to invest in expensive desalinization plants and/or reduce International Water Management Institute 11 the amount of water used in agriculture, transfer it to the other sectors and import more food. Group II represents countries that face economic water scarcity in 2025. They have suffi- cient water resources to meet the 2025 needs but they will have to increase water sup- plies through additional storage, conveyance and regulation systems by 25 percent or more over the 1995 levels to meet their 2025 needs. Many of these countries face severe fi- nancial and development capacity problems in meeting their water needs. Group III consists of countries that have no physical water scarcity and that will need to develop less than 25 percent more water supplies to meet their 2025 needs. In most cases, this will not pose a substantial problem for them. In fact, several countries in this group could actually decrease their 2025 water supplies from the 1995 levels because of increased water productivity. The crosshatched countries on this map are those that are projected to import over 10 percent of their total cereal consumption in 2025. The correlation between this set of coun- tries and Group I is clear. The data in PODIUM are currently being updated by IWMI, with local partners in several locations, to provide a more accurate perspective of the water/food picture at the country and regional level. Food Demand and Supply Food and water are two of the basic human needs—and the latter, in the form of irriga- tion, is necessary to produce much of the former. The single most important component of nutrition is calorie consumption per capita. The average for developing countries is around 2,200 kcal/person/day. With reasonably varied diets, if people satisfy their calorie requirements, they will also satisfy their requirements for protein, minerals and vitamins. A major exception to this rule is when a very high percentage of total calories is from rice, which is low in protein. Other exceptions occur with low vegetable consumption, which may cause vitamin and mineral deficiencies. But, on the whole, the principal target is adequate calorie consumption. International Water Management Institute 12 But even if the average calorie intake of a country is 2,200 kcal/capita/day, this is not enough to assure that everyone in the country is actually obtaining enough. People with relatively high incomes tend to overconsume calories, mainly from animal products. There- fore, it is necessary to get a substantially higher average calorie consumption in a country to attempt to achieve the minimum for poor people. How much higher this amount must be is largely a function of the distribution of income in a country. As a rule of thumb, something in the range of 2,700–3,200 kcal/day is adequate for most countries to satisfy basic food needs, depending on the distribution of income and other factors in individual countries. One of the most difficult issues in projecting the demand for food and related agricultural products in 2025 is consumption of animal products—meats, milk, cheese, etc. In most countries, the total calories consumed and the percentage of calories from animal prod- ucts increase with income, even at high-income levels. However, because of a variety of causes including urbanization, health concerns and costs, it is likely that there will be: • A reduction in excessive per capita calorie consumption by higher-income groups. • A rapid growth in consumption per capita of meat products in developing countries, such as China and India, as incomes increase, combined with a tendency to plateau at lower levels of consumption than in the traditionally meat-consuming countries of the west. • A shift toward more vegetarian, or “Mediterranean” diets, away from meats. • A shift from red meats, notably beef, to white meats, notably chicken. Agricultural Policies, Food Production and Rural Livelihoods The issues to be discussed in this section may be introduced by the following statement from the World Bank 1997: Irrigated farmland provides 60 percent of the world’s grain production. Of the near dou- bling of world grain production that took place between 1966 and 1990, irrigated land (working synergistically with high-yielding seed varieties and fertilizer) was responsible for 92 percent of the total. Irrigation is the key to developing high-value cash crops. By helping guarantee consistent production, irrigation spawns agro-industry. Finally, irrigation International Water Management Institute 13 creates significant rural employment. The Bank has been a major actor in the expansion of irrigation systems.… More than 46 million farming families have benefited directly from the Bank’s irrigation activities.1 While the exact values cited here may be debated,2 the importance of the central issues is beyond question. These are: • The near doubling of cereal production, which kept food prices low for poor people in face of rapid population growth. • The crucial role of irrigation, working synergistically with the other factors, in achieving this result. • The importance of sustaining and improving rural livelihoods. As this report also notes, the policies un- der which these accomplishments were achieved have been substantially changed by the World Bank and other donors—and, to a lesser extent, by developing countries. Since agricultural policies are major vari- ables in projections to 2025, these changes present an especially difficult prob- lem because the policies under which past results were created are changing in a way that is difficult to predict. Irrigated and Rain-fed Agriculture A popular idea is to concentrate food pro- duction in rain-fed, rather than in irrigated areas. The total cultivated area of the world 1Rural Development: From Vision to Action. 1997. Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Develop- ment Studies and Monographs Series 12. 2We estimate that in 1995 irrigated area produced 43 percent of world cereals, with this value increas- ing to 57 percent in 2025. However, the World Bank values are correct for the developing countries. How satellite technology improves rural livelihoods Low cost, high-tech tools help poor countries better manage their water resources IWMI researchers have developed satellite remote sensing tools that interpret low-cost public domain satellite images to have a more precise view of water resources and water/crop interactions. Where is the potential for increasing the productivity of water in agriculture? Where can water be reallocated from one area—or use—to another to best fulfill the needs of all users? Where is water in an irrigation system reaching crops or not reaching them? These questions can be answered using IWMI’s satellite remote sensing tools. IWMI is currently working with partners in Sri Lanka, Iran, Turkey and Pakistan to help these countries put in place satellite imaging services to strengthen their water and food security policies. Sri Lanka has been used as a test case. Using these new techniques, its meteorology office will soon be reprocessing satellite images that it receives for weather forecasting, to answer water resources and crop planning questions for colleagues in the agricultural and irrigation departments. For more information visit our website www.iwmi.org International Water Management Institute 14 is about one billion hectares, of which only about one-third is irrigated. Thus, a 10-per- cent increase in the productivity of rain-fed agriculture would have twice the impact as the same increase in irrigated agriculture. As the beneficial impact would be largely on poor farmers in marginal areas, this is an enormously attractive idea. It should be recognized from the start, however, that this is by no means a new idea. The goal of increasing productivity of marginal rain-fed areas has been energetically pursued, using all the tools of agronomic science, for at least a century, with highly disappointing results. We believe that the sciences and technologies of agronomy and water manage- ment have now advanced to the point where there are grounds for optimism in this field— and, indeed, there are notable cases of success on the ground. But before solutions can be found, the depth and extent of the problems must be thoroughly understood. There are three central problems of agriculture in marginal rain-fed areas. • Most of a farmer’s costs are the fixed costs of cultivating land, independent of yield. Thus as yields decrease, net returns to farmers decrease even faster. For example, if costs represent 2 metric tons per hectare (MT/ha), the farmer earns a net of 3 MT/ha at an economic maximum yield of 5 MT/ha, with optimal water supply. But the farmer makes only 1 MT/ha if yield is reduced to 3 MT/ha due to deficient water supply. • In most cases, rainfall is highly unreliable. Farmers rationally minimize their investments in labor, improved seeds, fertilizers, soil and water management and the like to mini- mize losses due to drought. But this lack of investment in productive inputs means that even when good rainfall occurs, the yield is not as large as it should be. • Since rainfall affects large areas, prices rise dramatically in times of drought, when there is nothing to sell and collapse in periods of good rainfall, when harvests exceed subsis- tence needs and there is alot to sell. It is hoped that advances in biotechnology will result in drought-resistant and more water- efficient crops. One problem with this idea is that, hitherto, drought-resistant crops and varieties have been, for that very reason, low-yielding. Such a crop may produce a more stable yield over varying climatic conditions but at such a low-yield potential that it is uneconomical or unable to respond to favorable conditions. As with yield, there is no single gene, or any known set of genes, that determines drought resistance. While there are likely to be advances in this field, largely through classical selective breeding, there is little like- lihood of a substantial breakthrough. International Water Management Institute 15 Last, it is important to guard against the common assumption that rain-fed agriculture somehow uses less water in food production than irrigated agriculture. Several effects of rain-fed agriculture should be understood: • Rain-fed crops are almost always planted on lands that previously supported low-val- ued grasses or trees. These plants consume all the water that enters the soil, through evapotranspiration, just as do the crops. Thus there may be a gain in the value per unit of water consumed, or “crop per drop”—if the crops are more valuable than the previous plants. In terms of environmental values, they may not be. • Rain-fed crops are usually planted using various kinds of soil-moisture conservation tech- niques, such as tillage, mulching, bunding, terracing, etc., to reduce non-beneficial evaporation from the land and runoff from the fields. When non-beneficial evaporation is reduced, there is a real gain in water productivity; but utilizing runoff may simply represent water that does not flow into other sur face and subsurface areas where it may have a higher-valued use—such as domestic water supplies or, indeed, downstream irrigated areas. • The productivity of water used in agri- culture, the “crop per drop,” is highest when the relative water supply is low, at around 0.35. But this finding must be treated cautiously, because it only optimizes returns to water—not to all the other factors of production that af- fect farmers’ income. Also, the degree of water-management precision required to attain this optimum is available only in the most sophisticated irrigation tech- nologies and management systems. • Another problem in rain-fed agriculture without inorganic fertilizers is that plant density is typically low in order to ex- tract nutrients from the soil. Conse- quently, the crop canopy is open and non-beneficial evaporation from the soil surface increases. A study in Africa, for example, showed that only 5 percent of the water entering a field was A new research focal point for sub-Saharan Africa By the end of 2000, IWMI will have established its sub-Saharan regional office in South Africa. This office will coordinate research being done in East and West Africa. This work links into IWMI’s research programs—especially on groundwater, smallholder water management and water management policies and institutions. Based in Pretoria, the office is home to a core of scientists from several countries and disciplines, including hydrology, economics, agronomy and sociology. Much of the work done here is being done in collaboration with universities, including the University of the North and the University of Pretoria. Current African research projects include: Catchement management (national and regional/ international level), small-scale community-based irrigation, water harvesting, groundwater and smallholder precision irrigation, environmental sustainability of water systems and multiple uses of water, agro-ecology and human health. An important goal for this research office is to identify and promote the exchange of research findings between Africa and Asia. As the only CGIAR center in the region, this IWMI office provides a useful link for other CG centers to further their research in the region. International Water Management Institute 16 beneficially used for crop production; the balance was runoff and non-beneficial evapo- ration; this study also shows the potential for improving the situation because of this high water loss. For these and related reasons, contrary to what is commonly thought, a large shift to rain- fed agriculture in many marginal areas could result in reduced productivity per unit of water consumed in agriculture. However, under specific agroclimatic conditions, small-scale farming can be productive in marginal rain-fed areas through supplemental irrigation. Of course, all irrigation is supple- mental irrigation because it is designed only to “top up” effective precipitation on the crops. But supplemental irrigation is a technique specifically designed for water-scarce regions, where scarce water is stored and used only in limited quantities at the critical growth stages of crops. In many areas, for example, there is sufficient average rainfall over the crop season to obtain good yields, but yields are greatly reduced by short-term, 15- to 30-day, droughts at critical growth stages of the plant. Water stress at the flowering stage of maize, for ex- ample, will reduce yields by 60 percent, even if water is adequate throughout the rest of the crop season. If there is a way to store surplus water and apply it if the rain fails in these stages, crop production would increase dramatically. There are many ideas for water conservation and supplemental irrigation for smallholders. This is a long and complex subject that cannot be gone into here other than to say that most of these ideas have failed in practice because of two important factors: • They do not adequately consider the need to actually have and store surplus water before the drought episode. • They fail to consider the economic costs, relative to benefits—which is all the farmer cares about. One of the single most promising technologies in this field that has gained wide adoption in India, is “percolation tanks.” These are small reservoirs that capture runoff and hold the water for percolation into shallow water tables. The water is then pumped up onto fields when and only when, it is most needed. Groundwater storage avoids the high evapo- ration losses of surface storage; with pumps, the water table provides a cost-free water distribution system to farms; and percolation losses from irrigation are automatically International Water Management Institute 17 captured by the water table for reuse. These percolation tanks can be combined with highly efficient sprinkler and drip irrigation conveyance systems to provide just the right amount of water when it is needed most. In order to evaluate the agricultural potential for marginal rain-fed areas it is necessary to have rather detailed climatic maps of countries. IWMI’s Climatic and Agriculture Atlas of the World (on IWMI’s website: http://www.iwmi.org), the final version of which will be available for Asia and Africa within the next 6 months, will be of enormous help in addressing this issue. In sum, for all these reasons, it is likely that an increasing proportion of the world’s food supply will have to be from irrigation. An important need is supplemental irrigation, in marginal rain-fed areas such as in sub-Saharan Africa, using advanced irrigation technolo- gies. In fact, this absolutely has to happen if sub-Saharan Africa is to produce enough food to feed its rapidly growing population without an unacceptably high level of food dependence and provide remunerative rural employment. Dr. David Seckler, an agricultural economist, was Director General of IWMI from 1995 to 2000. Dr. Upali Amarasinghe is a researcher in the Institute’s Irrigation and Water Resource Program. This research was funded by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), funds from the World Bank and other donors. IWMI researchers in Pakistan have become trusted advisers of national and regional irrigation authorities. The most recent impact of IMWI’s research here is lending support to the Punjab Province in its efforts to reform the irrigation management structure and the legal basis that allows cost sharing and devolution of irrigation management to local Farmer Organizations. From its Lahore office, IWMI helped facilitate the dialogue that created the farmer/irrigation department cost-sharing and joint-management structure. From its field station in Haroonabad, IWMI researchers worked with farmers and authorities to create a pilot Farmer Organization. Now the key research activity for IWMI is to measure the progress and problems that this ambitious experiment will encounter. Research to support water-sector reforms International Water Management Institute 18 Sustainable International Water Management Institute 19 Pedaling out of Poverty: Livelihood Impacts of Treadle-Pump Irrigation in South Asia Tushaar Shah This research is set out in Eastern India, Nepal terai, and Bangladesh—the heartland of the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghana basin, and South Asia’s so-called poverty square. The region packs 500 million of the world’s poorest people; but it also has one of the best groundwater resources of the world, available at a depth of 1.5–3.5 m. The population density is over 500/sq. km; each of over 90 percent of the holdings is less than 1 hectare and the sizes of these holdings have been halving every 15 years since 1960. Moreover, barring Uttar Pradesh where some consolidation of holdings took place during the 1960s, the average holding is fragmented in 4–5 postage-stamp-sized parcels; the average parcel size was 0.11 hectare in Bihar and West Bengal in the mid-1980s. The development of the industrial and service sectors—which could have absorbed some of the growing labor force—is slower than elsewhere in South Asia. Overall, then, the region is stuck in a low-productivity quagmire that perpetu- ates its rural poverty and agricultural stag- nation. Besides relieving its flood-proneness, intensive groundwater development can serve as a powerful ‘trigger’ to catalyze a green revolution-based rural economic upsurge in this region, as it did in Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh during the 1960s. This has al- ready begun to happen through rapidly growing private investment in tube wells and pumps. However, by far the majority of the poorest are left behind in this process because they cannot accumulate enough capital to invest in a diesel pump; even if they could, they cannot make it viable on their ultra-marginal holdings. The emergence of water markets has improved their access to diesel-pump irrigation; but unless there is sufficient competi- tion, these too tend to be exploitative and arbitrary. smallholder agriculture International Water Management Institute 20 Treadle-Pump Technology In many ways, the treadle-pump technol- ogy is a fitting answer to the needs of the smallholders in the region. It can lift water upto a maximum height of 7 m but gives best performance of 1–1.2 l/s at a pump- ing head of 3–3.5 m (fig. 1). It is simple to install; easy to operate by men, women, and children; and is ideal for vegetable cul- tivation but is also used extensively to irri- gate small plots of HYV paddy. Supplemen- tal, crop-saving irrigation of wheat, tobacco and jute enables treadle-pump irrigators to harvest remarkably higher yields compared to rain-fed farming. The best part is its cost; the cheapest bamboo treadle pump is installed for less than US$12; the more expensive metal and concrete pumps cost US$ 25–35 complete with a bore and a frame. The going rate for the capital cost of new canal irrigation potential in South Asia is US$4,000–4,500. New tube-wells create irrigation potential at US$800–1,000/ha but treadle-pump tech- nology creates new irrigation potential at US$100–120/ha and targets it to the poorest. The technology is developed and promoted by International Development Enterprises (IDE), a US NGO that abhors subsidies but revels in taking up a technology and paring its cost down to half, and taking it to the poor through mass-marketing in a professional manner. In Bangladesh, where the treadle pump was introduced in the mid-1980s, some 1.3 mil- lion pieces have been sold including replacement demand. Eastern India and Nepal terai have an ultimate market potential for some 10 million treadle pumps; but the sales here have just hit 100,000; and the IDE has a long way to go. It has been claimed that every treadle pump sold results in an annual increase of US$100 in the net income of an ultra- poor household; at this rate, if and when IDE does saturate this market potential, it will have accomplished one of the most powerful and best targeted poverty-alleviation interventions the world has seen, by increasing the net annual income of South Asia’s poorest rural households by a billion dollars, and that too, at little cost to the public exchequer. Figure 1. Relationship between suction head and treadle-pump discharge. Tracking smallholder International Water Management Institute 21 Livelihood Impact This study was designed to examine whether the picture is indeed as rosy as the IDE sug- gests. Some 3,000 poor households—adopters and potential adopters—were interviewed in six locations: North Bengal, Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Nepal Terai, North Bihar, Coastal Orissa, and North West Bangladesh. A spe- cial study on gender was carried out, too. Numerous other field studies were con- sulted to derive the following main conclu- sions: Treadle-pump technology does ‘self-select’ the poor; however, the first-generation adopters tend to be the less poor; the poor- est wait for ‘validation’ before adoption. Early adopters are not more literate; they do not have more surplus family labor; they just seem to have easy access to capital. Treadle-pump adoption transforms small- holder farming systems in different ways in different subregions; in North Bengal and Bangladesh, adopters take to cultivation of HYV rice in the boro season; elsewhere, they turn to vegetable cultivation and mar- keting. Adoption invariably results in increased land-use intensity, and thus has a power- ful ‘land-augmenting’ effect; however, Poor communities hold the key to village-level water management The study of smallholder water management practices in Africa and Asia is a research theme that IWMI will substantially expand over the coming three years. There have been many attemps at developing effective and low-cost water management practices suitable for poor people - and poor people are among the innovators, developing some of the most practical approaches. IWMI researchers feel there is tremendous scope for the spread of some of these practices. IWMI scientists are now identifying practices that can have the highest impact on improving the water situation for poor people. These innovations will be scientifically scrutinized, and the most promising ones sifted out. In doing this, IWMI can assist governments and NGOs to identify appropriate practices for specific situations, and see how they can be used to improve the lives of poor people. South Asian villages hold a wealth of knowledge and useful practices, for water harvesting, groundwater recharge and shared management of a common village well or resource. Here IWMI is working with the NGOs, Pradan and IDE1 to identify high-potential practices. In sub-Saharan Africa, low-cost, informal irrigation such as treadle pumps and bucket drip-kits are being used in rural communities and family gardens on an increasingly wide scale. IWMI`s research projects on these topics is asking three key research questions: what is the extent of this informal irrigation (using satellite imaging to gather this data, which is not known); what are the real economic impacts and constraints of these practices on poor communities; and what will be the consequence for water resources, as several million more people jump on the small-scale irrigation bandwagon. r water management innovations in Asia and Africa 1Pradan is Professional Assistance for Development Action. IDE is International Development Enterprises. Ph ot o: C ar yn K ed ge International Water Management Institute 22 adopters also resort to ‘priority culti- vation’; they provide crop-saving irri- gation in a large part of their hold- ings but practice highly intensive farming in the ‘priority plot.’ Because of highly intensive cultiva- tion of treadle-pump irrigated plots, average crop yields on these are much higher than those obtained by farmers using diesel pumps or other irrigation devices (fig. 2). Overall income impact is the product of increased land-use intensity, increased proportion of high value crops, and improved crop yields. Income impact varied across households and regions but an average increase in annual net income of US$100/year seems a con- servative estimate; at least 20 percent of adopters earn US$5–600 more per year in net terms. The Impact of Paddle-Pump adoption Impact of treadle-pump adoption at household level takes two forms: less enterprising among the poor use it to bring their surplus family labor under productive use. Their gain is an ‘implicit wage’ on family labor that is 1.5–2.5 times the market wage rate. In contrast, Figure 3. Treadle-pump sales in Bangladesh. Figure 2. Income impact of the treadle pump: Increased value of output/acre (US$). International Water Management Institute 23 the more enterprising among the poor use treadle-pump irrigation to make a transition from ‘subsistence farming’ to intelligent commercial farming; it is the latter who evolve and use new ideas like early planting to beat the market glut, husbanding hired diesel- pump irrigation with treadle-pump irrigation, priority application of inputs, building mar- ket linkages, growing new types of vegetables, and so on; they earn much more from treadle- pump irrigation—only a small part of their increased earning is a return to their labor; the bulk of it is a return to their entrepreneurial effort—by innovating, risk-taking, searching for new market opportunities, and so on. Second-Generation Impacts A number of hypotheses about the second-generation impact emerge from our research: Treadle-pump adopters not only obtain high productivity of land but also secure high ‘crop- per-drop’ and high ‘cash-per-drop’ through intensive management of treadle-pump irrigated plots; for, unlike diesel pumps that deliver 8–10 l/s, a treadle-pump discharge of 1–1.2 l/ s is easier to manage. The short-run impact of treadle-pump adoption on household income, food security, bet- ter cash flows, etc., seems well-established; in the longer run, treadle-pump adopter house- holds are likely to perform better in terms of savings and capital accumulation, investment in agriculture, education, and so on. As the density of treadle pumps in a community increases, the local labor market becomes tighter as treadle-pump adopters withdraw fully or largely to work on their own lands; this is likely to result in greater employment and higher wage rates for the landless and non- adopters who are more dependent on wage labor. Similarly, the growing treadle-pump density is likely to ease the demand pressure in local pump-irrigation markets obliging water sellers to offer a better deal to their buyers, who may be mostly non-adopters of treadle pumps. In Bangladesh, there are regions where the treadle-pump density is as high as 1.5–2/ha; many of these have used treadle pumps for 12–15 years now; it is therefore possible to test these second-generation hypotheses in North-West Bangladesh. International Water Management Institute 24 Issues The overall scale of the livelihood impact of treadle pumps will then ultimately depend squarely upon how fast the IDE can place the pump in the hands of the poor. A big op- portunity to push the sales of treadle pumps has arisen from the recent successive hikes in Indian diesel prices which will put marginal farmers in East India in great misery. De- pending on private pump-irrigation markets, their irrigation costs will shoot up from Indian rupees 25–35/ hour of 5 hp diesel-pump output (approximately 15–18 m 3) to Rs 48–70/hour. Since the price of purchased pump irrigation is the implicit wage of pedaling the treadle pump, the diesel price hike will give a big impetus to treadle-pump demand. But cashing-in on this opportunity seems easier said than done. The technology seems to be a super-performer—but its marketing remains a challenge. In Bangladesh, treadle-pump sales grew at a meteoric pace until 1995 when the market began to show signs of satu- ration; in Eastern India and Nepal terai together—with 8–10 times the market potential, treadle-pump sales over 6 years have barely reached 200,000, less than what Bangladesh sold in 1995–96 alone! What explains this drastic performance differential? It is difficult to say; but one hypothesis is, business strategy. In Bangladesh, the IDE strategy was driven by the ‘let-a thousand-flowers-bloom’ concept. A whole variety of treadle pumps—offering the farmer a wide range of price-quality options—is manufactured by 85–90 independent Figure 4. Price sensitivity of treadle-pump demand: Bangladesh. International Water Management Institute 25 manufacturers who market them through a decentralized, largely unregulated marketing channel on which the IDE has very little influence, much as it would like to have. In Bangladesh, the fastest moving treadle pump was the cheapest, and could not possibly have been the best on offer (see fig. 4). In India, in its concern for high quality, the IDE has adopted a more ‘professional’ approach in building a manufacturing base, a market- ing network and a promotional strategy that delivers a presumably superior product at a commensurately higher price under one brand name, Krishak Bandhu (farmer’s friend); the IDE maintains fairly tight control over the consumer price, marketing margins and quality through its own organization. Could it be that there are lessons to learn from the Bangladesh experience? Could it be that a variety of treadle-pump qualities at a range of prices deliv- ered through a decentralized manufacturing-cum-marketing network with the IDE taking a purely promotional role would do more to put the treadle pump into the hands of the poor? Tushaar Shah is Research Leader of IWMI’s Policy, Institutions and Management Program. This research was funded by the Swiss Development Corporation, and by International Development Enterprises in New Delhi, Kathmandu and Dhaka. International Water Management Institute 26 Water International Water Management Institute 27 In 1999, IWMI, in collaboration with the Wuhan University of Hydraulic and Electrical Engineering and the International Rice Research Institute, initiated a study on the impact of water-saving irrigation techniques in China. The initial focus was on alternate wet and dry irrigation (AWDI). As opposed to continuous flooding of paddy fields, AWDI allows for periods of field drying that reduce application requirements. The practice is widely adopted in the rice-growing areas of China and is said not only to save water but also to in- crease rice yields due to sturdier plants and the reduction of black root. Our main research site is the Zhanghe Irrigation System (ZIS). The Zhanghe Irrigation District (ZID) is situated in the middle part of China north of Changjiang (Yangtze) river. ZID is an administrative unit consisting of all or parts of several county and city jurisdictions. The ZIS’s water comes principally from the main reservoir although there are smaller reservoirs and other sources such as groundwater. The Zhanghe basin is 7,740 km2 including a catchment area of 2,200 km2. The ZIS accounts for most of the irrigated area within ZID. It is one of the typical large-size irrigation systems in China. Its designed irrigation area is about 160,000 ha. The Zhanghe reservoir, built between 1958 and 1966 on a tributary of the Chiangjiang river, supplies most of the irrigation water in ZIS. The reservoir was designed for multipurpose uses of irrigation, flood control, domestic water supply, industrial use, and power generation. Impact of Water-Saving Irrigation Techniques in China: Analysis of Changes in Water Allocations and Crop Production in the Zhanghe Irrigation System and District, 1966 to 1998 Hong, L., Li, Y.H., Deng, L., Chen, C.D., Dawe, D., Loeve, R., Barker, R. productivity in agriculture International Water Management Institute 28 It is hypothesized that AWDI is one of the water-saving practices that has enabled Zhanghe to transfer water to other higher-valued uses without significant loss in crop production. We are conducting research at three levels to assess the extent of application and impact of AWDI. These include: (i) controlled experiments with and without AWDI and for differ- ent timing of fertilizer application, (ii) farm surveys to identify the degree of adoption of AWDI, and (iii) flow monitoring at various scales within ZIS to assess the farm up to the basin impact of AWDI. Our ultimate goal in this research is to see whether water-saving technologies used suc- cessfully in China can be used in other rice-growing areas of the world. We feel that wa- ter-saving irrigation practices such as AWDI and recapture of return flows are suitable for monsoonal areas where there is considerable outflow that could be saved and put to pro- ductive use. In the more arid regions, especially where the water resources are fully com- mitted to various uses, the scope for water saving by AWDI and related techniques may be limited. Here we report on one of the initial steps in our research, an analysis of the historical records compiled by the Zhanghe system. This includes annual data compiled since 1966 on water inflows and allocation among alternative uses, area irrigated, and crop yields per hectare and per cubic meter of water. From the late 1970s to the late 1990s, water from the Zhanghe reservoir allocated to irrigation dropped from 600 mcm (million cubic meters) to about 200 mcm (fig. 1). The water allocated for other uses (municipal, industry, and hydropower) has increased steadily. However, the area irrigated and total grain production in ZID has declined only modestly. In analyzing the changes taking place, we identify those factors that seem to have contributed to sustained agricultural production despite a sig- nificant reallocation of water from irrigation to other uses. International Water Management Institute 29 Analysis of Data from a Historical Perspective The time series on which this report is based has been compiled by ZIS for the period 1966–1998. The values show the trends over time. In the tables, however, mean values are shown for three separate time periods—1966–78, 1979–88, and 1989–98. This division was made to reflect the very sharp changes that occurred at the end of the first and second time period. Following the end of the Cultural Revolution in the late 1970s, significant reforms took place that affected both irrigation and agricultural production. Volumetric pricing was in- troduced. New pumping stations were built. Medium and small-size reservoirs were re- stored or expanded. Introduction of improved varieties and increased use of chemical fer- tilizers led to a sharp increase in rice yields. The end of the 1980s saw further changes. The installation of two new hydropower plants greatly increased hydropower capacity but industrial and domestic demand also rose re- sulting in a still further decline in water available for irrigation. The pressure to save water led to an expansion of AWDI techniques at the farm level and to other water-saving prac- tices such as canal lining. The introduction of hybrid rice gave a further boost to rice yields. Figure 1. Zhanghe Irrigation Reservoir, Hubei, China annual water allocations for irrigation and other uses, 1965–1998. International Water Management Institute 30 Regulation and Allocation of Water among Alternative Uses in the Zhanghe Reservoir In ZIS, most of the irrigation comes from the Zhanghe reservoir supported by medium and small-size reservoirs and supplemented by a pumping station. Thus, a large irrigation network including storing, diverting, and withdrawing water has been established. The water available for irrigation includes rainfall, water from main and minor reservoirs, river water, and groundwater. The annual rainfall is 960 mm with a standard deviation of approximately 20 percent. The inflow of water seems to have increased significantly over time. Also in more recent years, there have been significant releases of water for flood control. The flood year 1996 provides a clear example. The rainfall (1,354 mm) and in- flow (16.4 x 108m3) were abnormally high. Water released for flood control (8.2 x 108m3) was the highest on record. Adjusting for water released for flood control, the available supply of water from the Zhanghe reservoir does not appear to have changed significantly over time. However, there are large year-to-year fluctuations which affect the annual releases for irrigation (fig. 1). When rainfall is low and the irrigation system needs more water for irrigation, the water yield from the catchment is small and vice versa. Zhanghe is a multipurpose reservoir. While the primary purpose is irrigation other uses include flood control, hydropower, municipal and industrial water supply, navigation, and aquatic culture. The tasks of regulation are based on planning, design, and experience. The objectives of water supply are subordinate to flood control and the prerequisite reser- voir safety. As much water as possible is stored to meet water demand for all users, but irrigation has the priority. In years of extreme shortage, such as the current year, water for hydropower is reduced. In the 1966–78 period the main water use was for irrigation, but water was not managed well. The standard of flood control was low. There was excess water at the upper end of the canal but farmers at the lower end often did not receive water. In the period 1979–88 there were substantial improvements in regulation and management and volumetric pric- ing of water was initiated. In the most recent period, 1989–98, new management tools International Water Management Institute 31 and information technologies were tested and implemented. These included multi-objec- tive optimization modeling, real-time information feedback regulation management for fore- casting weather and inflow into the reservoir, and remote sensing. Reservoir regulation and flood control were successfully linked with weather forecasting. In summary, improve- ments in regulation and management have improved the capacity of the Zhanghe reser- voir in flood control and in satisfying demands for water among alternative users and uses. Over the past three decades, with the in- crease in population and industry, the wa- ter demand from city, industry, and power generation has increased (fig. 1). Jinmen, a few kilometers from the Zhanghe main reservoir is a new industrial city with a population of 320,000. It has developed quickly in recent years. The central, pro- vincial, and prefecture governments have established a number of factories in the city. Major industries include oil, chemicals, textiles, and leather. In addition to the Jinmen city other smaller cities and towns have developed rapidly placing a growing demand for water for industry and munici- pal use. The Zhanghe main reservoir sup- plies water to Jinmen, while domestic wa- ter for smaller cities and towns is supplied by medium and small reservoirs or ground- water. Irrigation Performance Indicators An emerging impact of IWMI’s research over the past five years is a set of Irrigation Performance Indicators (water productivity in irrigated agriculture) which help water managers quantify the performance of a system from nine different perspectives. Through more recent research, IWMI scientists have further refined these to four key indicators: agricultural output per cropped area; output per irrigation unit command; output per irrigation supply; and output per unit of water consumed. Agricultural systems have been studied in South America, Asia, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and the United States. Since their introduction, the Indicators have been used to measure 40 irrigation systems in 15 countries. IWMI Research Report 20, available at www.iwmi.org presents this performance measurement data. Others are starting to use this thinking and fine tune it to meet their own needs. The Indicators are core measurement criteria in the World Bank/ IPTRID Irrigation Benchmarking System. Nepal, Sri Lanka and Mexico are at various stages of using the Indicators as agricultural policy tools. International Water Management Institute 32 However, the largest increase in water allocation has been for hydropower, followed by industry and municipal use (table 1). The Zhanghe main reservoir was designed with one hydropower plant of 2 x 800 kw capacity utilizing, on average, a water supply of 0.84 x 108m3. In contrast to most irrigation systems, the water flowing through the generators cannot be diverted back to irrigation. In 1989 and 1995, two new hydropower sets of 1 x 800 kw and 2 x 1,600 kw were installed. The water allocated to hydropower in the 1989–98 period exceeded the water allocated to irrigation—2.5 versus 2.1 10 8m3 per annum (table 1). As a result of the growth in demand by hydropower and other sectors, the amount of water from the Zhanghe main reservoir allocated to irrigation in the past decade has declined to one-third of its 1966–78 level (6.0 to 2.1 x 10 8m3). Change in Water Supplied for Irrigation by ZIS Figure 2 compares the trend in water supply to irrigation by the Zhanghe main reservoir and by ZIS. In the 1960s and 70s the main reservoir supplied three-quarters of the water for irrigation, but now it supplies only half. The water supply for irrigation by ZIS has dropped sharply since the mid-1980s. Despite the sharp drop in the water supply from the reser- voir in the 1979–88 period, the total water supply for ZIS declined only slightly. This is because in the 1980s, a number of medium-size reservoirs and ponds were restored or constructed to increase the water-storing capacity. This evened out farm-level water avail- ability from year to year and provided greater water control during the cropping season, facilitating water saving through alternate wetting and drying management of water in paddy fields. In the mid-1980s onward, however, the ZIS water supply from small reservoirs and other source declined. The apparent reason for this is that many of the medium and small- size reservoirs were required to support themselves and were technically no longer a part of ZIS. Table 1: Water Inflow and Releases from Zhanghe Irrigation Reservoir. Average Water Uses (mcm x 100) Rainflow Period Irrigation Industrial Municipal Hydro- Flood Evapo- Inflow (mm) electric Control ration 1966–78 6.03 0.17 – 0.25 0.15 1.24 69387 952 1979–88 3.62 0.37 – 0.53 2.27 1.19 75275 967 1989–98 2.12 0.48 0.15 2.51 2.83 1.23 90273 967 1975–78 Average for industrial water use. 1973–78 Average for hydro-electric water use. International Water Management Institute 33 Change in Rice-Irrigated Area and Paddy Rice Production and Yields in ZID What impact has the reduced allocation of water for irrigation had on crop production, and on land and water productivity? The rice-irrigated area in ZID has declined, particularly dur- ing the 1990s (table 2). However, the area planted to upland or non-paddy crops has in- creased from 19,000 ha in 1966–78 to 63,000 ha in 1989–98. Since our focus is on irrigation, in this section we analyze the changes in production and yields only for rice. The reported paddy rice grain production and yield per hectare are shown for ZID in table 2. No data are available on ZID water supply for irrigation. However, we assume that the main supply of water to areas in ZID not served by ZIS is the ZIS drainage water. Based on this assumption, we have estimated the yield per cubic meter of water. (This assump- tion seems reasonable since during the period 1966–78 the area irrigated by ZIS and ZID were almost identical). Rice production rose sharply during the period 1979–88 compared to the previous period despite a decline of 13 percent in planted area. This is because rice yields rose sharply due to the spread of modern varieties and increased use of chemical fertilizers following the change in agricultural policies at the end of the Cultural Revolution. Comparing the period 1989–98 with the previous period, rice planted area dropped by 19 percent and yields rose by 16 percent. Thus, rice production declined slightly. Over the three periods the yield per hectare of rice doubled, but the yield per cubic meter of water appears to have tripled. The increase in water productivity was greatest between the second and third period. Factors Contributing to the Increase in Crop Production and Water Productivity The long-term trend in water allocation across sectors and the trends in yield per hectare and per cubic meter of irrigation water supplied show that there have been water savings and a considerable increase in water productivity over time. Despite the decline in water for irrigation from the reservoir (table 1) and in the area irrigated in ZID (table 2), crop production has been sustained. International Water Management Institute 34 Several factors may have contributed to sustained rice crop production including: (i) eco- nomic and institutional reforms initiated in 1978, (ii) higher crop yields due to adoption of modern varieties and increased use of chemical fertilizer, (iii) a shift in the cropping pattern from two to one crop of rice, (iv) on- farm and system water-saving irrigation prac- tices (e.g., AWDI of paddy fields), (v) volumetric pricing of water, which may have encour- aged AWDI, (vi) development of alternate sources of water such as small reservoirs and groundwater, and (vii) recapture and reuse of return flows through the network of reser- voirs. Of course, the various changes that occurred are not independent of each other, but we are attempting to identify more precisely the contribution of each of these factors. Conclusions The Zhanghe Irrigation System was initially designed as a multipurpose reservoir. Water was supplied initially only for irrigation. Gradually, the supply and management of water for other purposes has grown in importance. This includes flood control, hydropower, and municipal and industrial water needs. The reservoir also serves environmental needs, tour- ism, aquatic culture, and navigation. In this report we have examined the trends in water allocation among sectors, in area irrigated, and in crop production and productivity. As water demand has grown for pur- poses other than irrigation, the water supplied to irrigation has fallen sharply. In order to maintain crop production, several water-saving practices have been adopted. While yield per hectare has doubled from the 1960s to the 90s, yield per cubic meter of water ap- pears to have tripled. Table 2: Changes in Paddy Rice Irrigated Area, Planted Area, Production and Yield in Zhanghe Irrigation District. Irrigated Planted Crop Yield Water Supplied Yield* Area Area Production Million Kg/m3 ha x 1000 ha x 1000 MT x 1000 t/ha mcm x 100 (irrigation) 1966–78 138 173 698 4.04 8.50 0.82 1979–88 134 151 1015 6.72 7.74 1.31 1989–98 118 122 952 7.80 4.10 2.32 *Upper limit, see Text for Discussion International Water Management Institute 35 Figure 2: Water use for irrigation from different sources. There are a number of factors that may have contributed to the increase in water produc- tivity. Research is being conducted to identify the impact of water-saving practices. The initial focus is on AWDI. A major objective is to identify those practices that could be suc- cessfully extended to other regions outside of China. The Chinese authors of this paper are attached to the Wuhan University of Hydraulic and Electric Engineering, Wuhan and the Zhanghe Irrigation System, Hubei in China; D. Dawe is a researcher with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Manila, Philippines. Ronald Loeve is a researcher with the Irrigation and Water Resources Program of IWMI, Randolph Barker is a senior scientist at IWMI. This paper is part of a study entitled Impact of Water Saving Irrigation in China funded by the Asian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). The research is being conducted by a team of scientists from the Wuhan University of Hydraulic and Electrical Engineering in China, the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, and the International Water Management Institute in Sri Lanka. International Water Management Institute 36 International Water Management Institute 37 Identifying and Reducing Threats to Sustainable Agriculture in Iran Hammond Murray-Rust, Peter Droogers, Hilmy Sally, Ambro Gieske, M. Akbari, A. R. Mamanpoosh, M. Miranzadeh, H. R. Salemi, N. Toomanian and M. Torabi The Zayandeh Rud (fig. 1) has been the basis for the importance of the heartland of cen- tral Iran. For centuries it has provided water for irrigation and enabled the growth and prosperity of the ancient cultural capital of Esfahan. As demand for water grows, however, with urban and industrial growth and the development of modern irrigation systems, there is intense pressure on the limited water resources of the basin. Traditional irrigation systems and tail-end areas may no longer receive their expected share of water, and what is received is frequently of poor quality due to upstream use. At the end of the basin, water is almost as saline as seawater. Soil salinity is spreading in the lower parts of the basin, groundwater re- sources are being depleted in all parts of the basin, urban demand is growing, and there is no scope for any additional reservoir storage. To help cope with these issues, IWMI and Iranian organizations are working together in a series of studies that look at water resources for agriculture from the basin perspective, enabling the development of an integrated approach to the management of water and soil salinity to help sustain agricultural productivity. The Iran-IWMI collaboration The Iran-IWMI Collaborative Research project, established in 1998, aims to address the role of water management for sustaining agricultural productivity. Through an integrated program that looks at basin-level water management, management of irrigation systems and farm- level water management practices. The project aims to find solutions to three main elements of water management problems: alleviating soil salinity, minimizing the negative impacts of return flows to the Zayandeh Rud, and attempting to reduce the gap between actual and The river basin perspective International Water Management Institute 38 potential yields. The project uses modeling and simulation techniques to assess current conditions and the impact of possible future changes on water conditions at each of the three spatial levels of study: basin, irrigation system, and farm. The project is funded by the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran through the Ministry of Agriculture, the Iranian Agricul- tural Engineering Research Institute, and the Department of Agricultural Engineering of the Esfahan Agricultural Research Center. The Zayandeh Rud Basin The Zayandeh Rud is the most important river in the Esfahan Province in central Iran. Largely fed by snowmelt from the Zagros mountains, it flows down into the basin where the city of Esfahan is located. It is a closed basin with no outflow to the sea: the river terminates in the Gavkhuni swamp, which is a natural salt pan. The river has provided the basis for centuries of important economic activity, including the growth and establishment of Esfahan itself as the former capital city of Persia. The region has been able to support a long tradition of irrigated agriculture in addition to meeting the domestic needs of a substantial population. More recently, a huge increase in industrial activity has increased the demand for water, and the Zayandeh Rud is showing typical signs of a river basin under threat. The continued growth of urban population and the recent rapid increase for industrial uses have led to a competition for water with the agriculture sector, and there has normally been insufficient water to irrigate the total irrigable area. This has resulted in the develop- ment of saline soils in the lower portions of the basin, significant gaps between actual and potential yields, and a reduction in the quality of return flows into the Zayandeh Rud. In addition to increased salinity in the river downstream of the major irrigated areas, there is more urban and industrial effluent being returned into the river, so that downstream water is badly polluted. Although some of the gross shortfalls in water are met through trans-basin diversions from other catchments in the Zagros mountains, these will not au- Figure 1: Overview of the Zayandeh Rud basin and its irrigated areas. International Water Management Institute 39 tomatically reverse the trends towards less water, and water of poorer quality, for both ag- ricultural and nonagricultural uses. Threats to sustainable agriculture The primary threats to sustainable irrigated agriculture are: a) reductions in water for agri- culture because of competition from other sectors, b) declining water quality in both ground- water and surface water resources, and c) soil salinization. Several measures have been adopted over the past couple of decades to help alleviate these problems, including installation of drains and augmenting water supplies through trans-basin diversions. However, these structural measures require proper management to be effective: merely adding more water and more drains will not automatically overcome the threats to sustainable agriculture. Should drains fail, for example, there will be increased threats to agriculture as water tables will rise and salinity will increase. Competition for water between different sectors Agriculture remains the largest single user of water in the basin despite increased demands from other users of water. The data on extractions show that in a typical year as much as 90 percent of water released from the Chadegan reservoir is diverted into irrigation sys- tems. Although there are also substantial return flows to the Zayandeh Rud their quality is poorer than that of the diverted water and may not be suitable for downstream users. Esfahan is the second largest city of Iran with a population of some 2 million. In recent years, the province has seen a significant industrial expansion with steel mills, refineries, cement works, and a host of smaller industries established along the Zayandeh Rud. As in most other countries, industries are more capable of paying for water than farmers, so there is a potential for decreased supplies for irrigated agriculture. Similarly, urban demand is rising annually not merely through population growth but also because more affluent people consume more water per capita. Finally, and increasingly important, is the growing concern with environmental degrada- tion, with pressure to maintain higher base flows to dilute pollutants so that acceptable standards in water quality can be maintained. International Water Management Institute 40 The measure seen as most effective in this regard has been the construction of diversion tunnels from the Kuhrang river in the Chaharmahal-va-Bakhtiari province. The two tun- nels already constructed can deliver 540 million cubic meters of water a year into the upper reaches of the Zayandeh Rud and make a significant contribution to the total water supply in the basin. A third tunnel, expected to be ready in a few years, will deliver a further 250 million cubic meters of water annually. Declining quality of groundwater and surface water resources As the river flows downstream, an increasing proportion is being used for irrigation. The solute content of the irrigation return flow into the aquifers and the river, combined with urban and industrial effluents, is much higher than that of the water flowing in the river. The mixing leads to progressively increasing levels of salinity (EC) and total dissolved sol- ids along the Zayandeh Rud. At the regulating dam, EC values are about 0.3 dS/m. A significant increase occurs as the water passes through Esfahan (fig. 2) with values going up to 2.5 dS/m. As the river receives return flow from the Abshar irrigation scheme, the values further climb to 4 dS/m. With the inflow of water from the main northern drain after Ejiyeh, the EC reaches a maximum of 16 dS/m, after which it slowly decreases to 12 dS/m because of mixing with less-saline tributaries. Finally, after 280 km the remain- ing river water spills into the Gavkhuni swamp. Hydrochemical analyses of groundwater from boreholes along the Zayandeh River reveal the same pattern, which is not surprising as the aquifers are recharged by the river water and return flow and with leakage from the irrigation schemes. A detailed hydrochemical study of a small sub-catchment (Lenjanat), along the Zayandeh Rud upstream of Esfahan over a 10-year period, has shown that the groundwater composition is subject to long- term trends. In some parts of the aquifer, salts are slowly being flushed out, whereas in other parts concentrations are rising. It appears that the groundwater composition is slowly changing in response to expanding or variable cultivation practices. Further studies on groundwater chemistry are underway using the existing database for different aquifers, notably in the more-saline parts downstream of Esfahan, especially in the Rudasht area. International Water Management Institute 41 Soil salinization It is estimated that about 23.5 million hectares (or 14.2% of the total area of the coun- try) are salt-affected, which is equivalent to about 50 percent of Iran’s irrigated potential. Therefore, salinization poses a serious threat to the sustainability of irrigated agriculture in Iran. Salinity levels of water used for irrigation in the Zayandeh Rud vary substantially from values of less than 1 dS m-1 upstream up to around 6 dS m-1 at the Rudasht irrigation scheme located downstream. As salts will not leave the system by evaporation, a salt ac- cumulation is likely to occur if no surplus of water is applied to leach them. Due to this accumulation, salinity levels of soil can be higher those of the irrigation water. A dramatic example of this can be seen in the Rudasht area where the salinity of soil is reported to be about 14 dS m-1, while that of irrigation water is about 6 dS m-1. Obviously, these high salinity levels of soil have a severe negative impact on crop yields, as evidenced by the big gap between actual and potential yields obtained from some field experiments in the Rudasht irrigation system (fig. 3). Two hazards are likely to occur if no proper water management is applied to reduce this soil salinization. First of all, irrigation applications are too low, causing a salt accumula- tion in the soil. In an attempt to reduce this salt accumulation, a surplus of irrigation Figure 2: Salinity levels along the Zayandeh Rud. International Water Management Institute 42 water will be supplied to leach these salts from the root zone. This, in many cases, leads to the second problem, waterlogging due to rising groundwater. Often, this groundwater is also very saline and will increase the salinity level of the root zone substantially. So, irri- gation applications must be high enough to minimize salt accumulation in the root zone and low enough to limit the hazard of waterlogging. Obviously, problems related to water- logging can also be diminished by an adequate drainage system. These threats, either singly or in combination, result in two main effects: declining irrigation intensities and a significant shortfall in ac- tual yields compared to potential (fig. 3). Reducing threats to sustainable agriculture The Iran-IWMI Collaborative Research project was established to identify how the main threats to sustainable irrigated agri- culture could be alleviated. The program is a 4-year collaboration between the Iranian Agricultural Engineering Research Institute (IAERI), based in Karaj, the Agricultural Engi- neering Department of the Esfahan Agricultural Research Center (EARC), and the Interna- tional Water Management Institute (IWMI). The project has adopted a joint program of training and research to accomplish its aims, and uses the Zayandeh Rud as its main research location. In the later stages of the project, it is hoped to extend the methodologies developed in Esfahan to other parts of Iran. Three elements of the project distinguish it from other water management studies in Iran: • The use of an integrated approach to studies at basin/irrigation system/field level (referred to as the IWMI water resources paradigm) that not only looks at problems at differ- ent levels in a river basin but also examines the interactions between them. The scope of the study ranges from operation and management of water resources at the main reservoir down- wards through irrigation system management to farm-level irrigated agricultural practices. • The use of information technology and modeling to understand the dynamics within each level, as well as the interrelationships between them. Currently, five different model approaches are being adopted: Figure 3: Actual and potential yields of some crops in the Rudasht irrigation system. International Water Management Institute 43 – basin-level hydrological modeling that assesses inflows into the reservoir and the down- stream hydrology as affected by extractions of water for different uses; – modeling of the quality of river water to examine relationships between the main sources of pollution and the rate of decrease in water quality in the Zayandeh Rud; – modeling of the quality and quantity of groundwater to determine the changes in wa- ter-table levels, the deterioration of groundwater resources over time, and the impacts of groundwater-based irrigation on water availability and quality; – soil-water-atmosphere-plant (SWAP) modeling to assess water and salt bal- ance at field level, determine the pro- ductivity of water at field level and to ex- amine causes of yield gaps; and – irrigation system assessment using ag- gregated field-level models that deter- mine performance for different combina- tions of soil, crop, and irrigation water application. • The extensive use of already existing information and remotely sensed data (IWMI researchers have already demon- strated that basin modeling can be success- fully performed using publicly available datasets and remote sensing data). At the end of the current phase of the project, a series of possible remedial ac- tions will have been proposed whose adop- tion can provide a sustainable basis for ir- rigated agriculture in the Zayandeh Rud. Hammond Murray-Rust and Hilmy Sally are researchers with IWMI’s Irrigation and Water Resources Program. Peter Droogers is a researcher with IWMI Applied Information and Modeling Systems Program. Ambro Gieske is a re- searcher with ITC, The Netherlands. All other authors are from the Esfahan Agricultural Research Center (EARC), Iranian Agricultural Engineering Research Institute (IAERI), Esfahan, Iran. This research has been funded by the Government of Iran. World Water and Climate Atlas Where can rain-fed agriculture be expanded? Where can supplemental irrigation increase yields in marginal rain-fed crop areas where the majority of poor people live? Where is irrigation necessary to increase crop yields? The IWMI World Water and Climate Atlas helps to answer these questions by providing water and agricultural planners with a complete worldwide dataset of water and climate information spanning the past 40 years. The data has a resolution of 18 square kilometers at the equator, the highest resolution currently available for a global dataset. This is the first tool of its kind that brings data from some 30,000 weather stations to users in an open and easy-to- use format. Using the Atlas, agricultural planners can reduce the time needed to plan irrigation systems or evaluate agricultural plans—from months to weeks; in some cases days or even hours. The data covers precipitation, temperature, humidity, hours of sunshine, evaporation estimates, wind speed, total number of days with and without rainfall and days without frost. Many useful applications are possible with the Atlas. IWMI is working with other CGIAR centers and national research partners to help them use the Atlas to sharpen their crop research. The World Water and Climate Atlas can be downloaded at the IWMI website www.iwmi.org Precipitation International Water Management Institute 44 Toward International Water Management Institute 45 Hydrological Modeling of the Mekong River Basin Geoff Kite The Mekong river, with a basin of almost 800,000 square kilometers and a length of nearly 4,200 kilometers ranks amongst the world’s great rivers. It rises in Tibet and flows through China’s Yunnan Province, Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia before reaching the South China Sea in Vietnam. The riparian people, plants, and animals depend on its annual cycle of flood and drought. Wetlands along the river, including the Tonle Sap and the Mekong delta, supply 50–80 percent of the total protein intake for basin residents in the form of fish. The Mekong river usually begins rising in May and peaks in September or October, with the average peak flow at Phnom Penh faster than 45,000 cubic meters per second. Flows taper off after November and reach their lowest levels of roughly 1,500 m3/s in March and April. The average annual total dis- charge is roughly 450 billion cubic meters. Cambodia’s Tonle Sap, or “Grand Lac” plays a vital role in the Mekong river system and in the Cambodian economy. In the dry season, the Great Lake’s shallow waters cover roughly 3,000 square kilometers, and the lake drains slowly into the Mekong river. As the rainy season progresses, the river rises above the Tonle Sap level, and the flow reverses, filling the lake. The lake typically ex- pands to more than 10,000 km2. As floodwaters reach the surrounding forest and agri- cultural areas, the lake receives a massive influx of nutrients that triggers a surge in pro- ductivity. The Tonle Sap is renowned to be one of the most productive freshwater ecosys- tems in the world, supporting 60–75 percent of the inland fisheries in Cambodia, with harvests whose levels have historically reached 100,000 tons per year. After rice, fish is the most important component of the Cambodian diet, accounting for as much as 80 percent of the animal protein consumed. sustainable water development International Water Management Institute 46 The Mekong river fisheries are a tremen- dously valuable resource to the 50 million residents of the basin. Fishers harvest more than 700,000 metric tons of over 300 commercially important species each year. The Mekong discharge into the South China Sea also supports a productive coastal fishery. Estimates of annual per capita consumption of fish are 30 kg in Vietnam, 15.3 kg in Thailand, 13.3 kg in Cambodia, and 6.5 kg in Laos. Fish sup- ply 50–80 percent of the total protein in- take of the basin residents. Fishers and scientists have documented a critical link between the Mekong main channel, its floodplain wetlands and agricultural land. During periods of high water, flooded areas serve as primary breeding and nursing grounds for 90 percent of the Mekong fish species. Nutrients stored in floodplain vegeta- tion are made available to the river food chain when inundated, causing a surge in pro- ductivity. Floodplain areas produce three times as much fish per area as the main chan- nel, and of the estimated 700,000 metric tons caught annually, roughly 236,000 tons are attributed to floodplain areas. Approximately 5 percent of the annual flow of the Mekong is regulated by dams. However, the pace of hydro-development on the Mekong is accelerating. It is estimated that only 20.5 terawatthours per year are developed out of a potential development of 1,090 terawatthours per year in the Mekong countries. While these values are for the countries of the basin in their entireties (except for China, which is for Yunnan Province alone) they do give an indication of the possible scale of development. China alone intends to com- plete eight large main-stem dams and Laos has started constructing several of the 23 dams Figure 1. Existing dams (yellow) and planned dams (red) on the Mekong river and its tributaries. International Water Management Institute 47 planned for completion before 2010. In 1990, the Mekong Secretariat released a study proposing nine main-stem run-of-river dams. Since the first comprehensive survey of the Mekong in the 1950s, more than 180 dams and diversion projects have been proposed for the basin. Earlier plans envisioned a cascade of main-stem dams with more than 6,000 square kilometers of reservoir area. For political, social, economic and environmental rea- sons, dam proponents have scaled down the main-stem project proposals to pursue sites on the Mekong tributaries in Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam (fig. 1). The development of the Mekong basin and, in particular, the construction of dams on the main-stem will affect the water levels and flows downstream that, in turn, impact on the fisheries and environment. The implications of basin developments on these interests can be studied using distributed hydrological models. Such hydrological models generally re- quire large numbers of data which, in many countries, are not always available. However, global datasets are becoming increasingly available and data from the internet can often be used to substitute for ground-based data. The Semi-Distributed Land-Use Runoff Pro- cess (SLURP) hydrological model has been used to take advantage of such data sources. As part of a joint project with the Inter- national Centre for Living Aquatic Re- sources Management (ICLARM, Penang, Malaysia) and the Mekong River Commis- sion (MRC, Phnom Penh, Cambodia), IWMI has developed a hydrological model of the Mekong basin that can be used to model the management of water flows and the aquatic resource production in this basin. The SLURP hydrological model divides a basin into subbasins using topography from a digital elevation map. These Figure 2. The digital elevation model and the derived river network and subbasins. International Water Management Institute 48 subbasins are further divided into areas of different land covers using data from a digital land cover classification. Each land cover class has a distinct set of parameters. The hy- drological model simulates the vertical water balance, transforming the daily precipitation into evapotranspiration and runoff separately for each land cover within each subbasin. While the distributions of distances and changes in elevation for each point in the basin were obtained from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) GTOPO30 public-domain DEM off the internet, the distribution of land covers within the basin was obtained from the USGS 1-km digital land cover map of the world. Figure 2 shows the digital elevation model and the derived river network and subbasins. Daily climate data (precipitation, temperature, dew point, and wind) were obtained from the US National Climate Data Center’s Global Surface Summary of the Day (GSOD) internet database. Radiation data were estimated from daily precipitation data. Using these data, the SLURP model simulates the full hydrological cycle for each element of the sub-basin/land-cover matrix and routes the runoff to the nearest stream and down- Figure 3. Flooded areas for different land covers, Tonle Sap, Cambodia, May 1994–December 1998. International Water Management Institute 49 stream through the basin. Dams on the Nam Ngum, Chi, and Mun rivers were included in the simulation. In the absence of information, operational rules were assumed. Flows in the Tonle Sap river were simulated from computed flows in the Mekong at Kratie and the volume of the Tonle Sap lake. Relationships were developed between Tonle Sap level and the flooded areas of each type of land cover using 30 m resolution data from Landsat TM. The SLURP hydrological model was applied at a daily time interval for the period 1.01.1994 to 31.12.1998, with no cali- bration of parameters. Verification was made by comparing the simulated streamflow with recorded data. The simu- lated levels in the Tonle Sap were then con- verted to time series of flooded area with time for the land cover types around the Tonle Sap lake (fig.3). These results may be used to evaluate fish productivity and irrigation productivity as well as water allocation issues and climate change impacts. Geoff Kite is a researcher with IWMI’s Applied Informa- tion and Modeling Systems Program. This was a joint research project between IWMI and the International Centre for Living Aquatic Resources Management, Penang (ICLARM), and the Mekong River Commission (MRC), Phnom Penh. This research was funded by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Delivering knowledge – practical tools for scientists, policy makers and NGOs. Over the past year, IMWI has put in place an ambitious information program that has two goals: to disseminate research results as broadly as possible to institutes and governments across the developing world; and to document tools and impacts of the Institute’s research as they emerge, and explain their benefits to potential users. A central point of this effort is the Institute’s website—which has registered an average of 700 visits per day since March 2000. All the IWMI research publications, outputs and tools are found at www.iwmi.org. These materials are available free-of-charge, and can be accessed instantly through the site. For those not ‘on the Net,’ the IWMI documentation service delivers hard copies of its publications catalogue and reports to all countries. The IWMI scientific library offers direct access (by phone, fax or through the website) to references on water management titles and to a vast collection of conference proceedings, reports and other useful grey literature from around the world. Direct delivery of software tools and datasets is currently being organized. Through the web site (or by mail), users can receive copies of IWMI software tools. Future plans include giving users direct access to satellite remote sensing data on water/crop interactions; to calculations of rain-fed agricultural potential of a given region; and a multi-country database on irrigation performance indicators. A parallel goal is building relations with universities across the developing world that have a potential interest in using IWMI’s research outputs. In the near future, a complete set of IWMI Research Reports and water management tools will be on the desk of every university faculty in the developing world that deals with water resources, agricultural research, water, water/ health, water/environment, agricultural economics, irrigation and related areas. International Water Management Institute 50 For nationally recruited researchers like myself, doing research at IWMI gives good exposure to new sources of thinking, talent and scientific perspectives that are only be found in an international research environment. An important role of my work, and the work of the Institute, is to ‘get people thinking’ about certain important issues. Our paper about water scarcity in Sri Lanka is a good example. It shows that even a perceived water-plentiful country can experience severe water scarcity in agricultural pockets, if it continues to manage its water resources in the current way. The results of this and other work I have done on global and regional water supply/demand, have put statistics at the service of applied research. It is satisfying to see that these studies have helped open the view of agricultural researchers and policy makers to a new perspective of their situation—seen through hydrological, economic and sociological facts. IWMI is well known internationally as an institute that does multidisciplinary research, with varied international contacts and unique opportunities for comparative research. For long, water management to reduce poverty and to achieve more gender equity has been an important aim of IWMI. Good research is important. For example, one cannot generalize about the role of women in agriculture as it varies due to many factors. Based on research findings, IWMI formulates policies and recommendations, which are beneficial not only to the countries where work is being done but also to others. IWMI will, I feel, continue to be in the strong position that it holds today. It should further expand during the five years ahead. Eric Sunhail Benjamin Administrative Services/Travel, (Pakistan) I am particularly proud of my work at IWMI. I see my main function in the Institute as serving as the ‘central communication center’ for IWMI Pakistan. Being able to satisfy the demand of my colleagues on a daily basis is an interesting challenge. The Institute is a good place to work. I have enjoyed it and will do so in the future, as IWMI continues to grow. People Behind Dr. Upali Amerasinghe, Irrigation and Water Resources Program (Sri Lanka) Dr. Barbara van Koppen (on right) Poverty Gender and Water project (The Netherlands) International Water Management Institute 51 Nilmini Matthysz Communications and Donor Relations Office (Sri Lanka) I have been at IWMI for 8 years and during this time have seen Asim R. Kahn Performance and Impact Assessment Program, Indus Basin (Pakistan) As I come from a large public- sector organization, working in IWMI three days a week provides a breath of fresh air. During the past three years of my association with IWMI, I have found the work environment here very conducive to research on water-related issues. For my