Growing more food with less water: how can revitalizing Asia's irrigation help?

Abstract

Irrigation has always played a central role in the agrarian IntroductionHow much more food would Asia need by 2050? Is there enough land and water to grow this amount of food, without inflicting irreversible damage to the environment? In this quest for more food with less water, what role can Asia's irrigation systems play? What would it take to revitalize Asia's irrigation and how best can it be done? Do different regions of Asia need to follow different strategies for revitalizing irrigation systems? If so, what could those strategies be? The purpose of the paper is to address these questions and provide a list of innovative suggestions for revitalizing Asia's irrigation.From supporting famed hydraulic civilizations in the ancient past to spearheading Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, irrigation has always played a pivotal role in the agrarian economy of Asia. Indeed, it is equally true that many ancient civilizations like that of Angkor in Southeast Asia collapsed due to failure in irrigation management. It therefore comes as no surprise that Asia accounts for the bulk of irrigated area in the world (70% of all irrigated area) and is home to some of the largest as well as oldest surface irrigation schemes. Largest, and oldest, as they may be, Asia's surface irrigation sector is also beset with a number of often intractable problems. Important among these is the consistent under-performance of irrigation schemes -most often than not, these deliver much more water than required for head end farmers and irrigate much less land than they were originally designed to do, thereby affecting the tailend farmers. This results in low land and water productivity; low returns on investments; end users (farmers) disinterest and apathy in these systems and eventual exit, if they have such an option, from these formal irrigation systems. At the heart of these problems is the low accountability of the irrigation officials to their farmer clients and this is often exacerbated by technical design problems.The purpose of this paper is to present a menu of options that has the potential of revitalizing Asia's irrigation by gearing it towards the dual aim of poverty alleviation in poorest parts of Asia and helping in diversification and expanding livelihood options in the more dynamic parts, so that, Asia as a continent, can continue to grow more food with less water to feed an ever increasing population in face of unprecedented challenge of climate change. 3 How much more food and water by 2050?Asia's population will reach 5 billion by 2050. How much more food would we need by then? Table 1 respectively. A large portion of this comes directly from rainfall that infiltrates the soil to generate soil moisture, while the rest is met by irrigation withdrawn from surface and groundwater sources and delivered to farm fields. Figure 1 shows the area under rainfed and irrigated agriculture in South, East and Central Asia.

Water user associations: a review of approaches and alternative management options for Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Nevertheless, development support often concentrates on the duty of WUAs to carry out O&M and recover related costs. Meanwhile, capacity building of irrigation agency staff stays out of focus (Mukherji et al 2012). Also, incentives for field-level staff to actively engage with WUAs are most of the time lacking because of the focus on infrastructure development and securing donor funding (Suhardiman and Giordano 2014).…”

“…Based on their review of WUAs in Asia, Mukherji et al (2009: 49) claimed that to unlock the potential of surface irrigation systems, those systems "must morph in ways they can support and sustain the rising groundswell of atomistic irrigation." Technological innovations in canal irrigation systems, such as intermediate storage structures, could be used to recharge aquifers and increase farmers' flexible irrigation use (Mukherji et al 2012). However, such innovations can only come about when surface water infrastructure is not only managed for the purpose of surface water irrigation and groundwater infrastructure not only managed for the purpose of groundwater irrigation.…”

“…The last option listed on combined surface water and groundwater WUAs is less developed. Several scholars hint at this option as a solution to challenges in irrigation development today (Foster and van Steenbergen 2011;Mukherji et al 2012), but few practical examples are available. Hence, the option is explored based on experiences made with mainstream WUAs in a setting of conjunctive surface water and groundwater use.…”

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“…Other adaptive strategies include the involvement of communities and government agencies in increasing storage capacity via smallscale reservoir projects, rainwater harvesting, groundwater banking through artificial and/or natural aquifer recharge and flood harvesting (that is, directed capture of floods in floodplains) and restoration of coastal vegetation to promote opportunities for aquaculture [242,244,252]. Additional adaptation options include reduction in enduser demand, deengineering and reoperation of water systems to create adequate supply and distribution, improved wastewater treatment plants to facilitate wastewater reuse, desalination plants and targeted waterconservation projects [253].…”

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“…By 2025, an estimated 2.2 billion people will live in South Asia, and cereal demand will reach 471 million tonnes per year, compared to 241 million tonnes per year in 2000 (FAO, 2012;Mukherji, Facon, de Fraiture, Molden, & Chartres, 2012). Cereal demand will also increase substantially in China due to population growth and shifting of food preferences towards meat (Comprehensive Assessment, 2007).…”