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As a result of population growth, economic development and climate change, feeding the world and providing water security will require important changes in the technologies, institutions, policies and incentives that drive present-day water management, as captured in Goal 6.4 of the Millennium Development Goals. Irrigation is the largest and most inefficient water user, and there is an expectation that even small improvements in agricultural water productivity will improve water security. This paper argues that improvements in irrigation water productivity involves a complex and comprehensive rural transformation that goes beyond mere promotion of water saving technologies. Many of the measures to improve water productivity require significant changes in the production systems of farmers and in the support provided to them.Looking forward, water use and competition over water are expected to further increase. By 2025, about 1.8 billion people will be living in regions or countries with absolute water scarcity. Demand for water will rise exponentially, while supply becomes more erratic and uncertain, prompting the need for significant shifts of inter-sectoral water allocation to support continued economic growth.Advances in the use of remote sensing technologies will make it increasingly possible to cost-effectively and accurately estimate crop evapotranspiration from farmers' fields. K E Y W O R D Sirrigation efficiency, water productivity, rural transformation RĖSUMĖ En raison de la croissance démographique, du développement économique et du changement climatique, nourrir le monde et assurer la sécurité de l'eau nécessiteront des changements importants dans les technologies, les institutions, les politiques et les incitations qui conduisent à la gestion actuelle de *Améliorer la productivité de l'eau dans l'agriculture en mettant l'accent sur la transformation des zones rurales.

Global warming affected by human activities causes changes in the regime of rivers. Rivers are one of the most vital sources that supply fresh water. Therefore, management, planning, and proper use of rivers will be crucial for future climate change conditions. This study investigated the monitoring of hydrological drought in a future period to examine the impact of climate change on the discharging flow of the Zard River basin in Iran. Zard River is an important supplier of fresh and agricultural water in a vast area of Khuzestan province in Iran. A continuous rainfall-runoff model based on Soil Moisture Accounting (SMA) algorithm was applied to simulate the discharge flow under 10 scenarios (obtained from LARS-WG.6 software) of future climate change. Then, the Stream-flow Drought Index (SDI) and the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) were calculated for each climate change scenario for the future period (2041–2060). The results of the meteorological drought assessment showed that near normal and moderate droughts had higher proportions among other drought conditions. Moreover, the hydrological drought assessment showed the occurrence of two new droughts (severe and extreme) conditions for the future period (2041–2060) that has never happened in the past (1997–2016).

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