CPWF Research Highlights

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10568/7019

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 10

Managing Risk In Delta Ecosystems To Sustain Diverse Livelihoods
(Other, 2009) To Phuc Tuong
In the Mekong and the Ganges river deltas, saltwater intrusion when salt water from the sea moves up into the river poses problems for some farmers and opportunities for others. Salt water intrusion most often occurs during the dry season when river hydraulic pressure is low. For rice farmers in these regions saltwater intrusion threatens dry season rice crops that require fresh water, whereas shrimp farmers are able to expand the scale of their farming with the increase in brackish water during low-flow periods.
Multiple Use Water Services To Address Real Life Water Needs
(Other, 2009) van Koppen, Barbara
Poor communities in rural and peri-urban areas diversify their livelihoods by farming in backyards and gardens, keeping livestock and processing crops or running micro enterprises such as small restaurant or brick making. Only with an adequate water supply can real life multiple water needs be met most conventional water supply system falls short. Systems are typically designed for a single use only either for domestic use or single productive use such as irrigation. Yet, in reality villagers invariably use these schemes for multiple purposes. Water supply system designed for multiple uses from the outsets, can make a difference to the lives of poor communities by improving food security and income as well as health and wellbeing. In addition to alleviate poverty, multiple use approaches also reduce unpaid workloads and enhance gender equity.
Safeguarding Public Health From Farms To Markets To Househods
(Other, 2009) Abaidoo, Robert C.
Urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) has becoming an important livelihood in developing countries, as fast growing population demand more food and water. UPA contribute to urban food security -in several African cities between 50 and 90 percent of the vegetables consumed are produced in city backyard or just outside the city limits in small farms. But growing demand for industrial and domestic water need is leaving famers with little alternative but to use some of the large volume of wastewater release for urban areas for irrigation. In Ghana and Burkina Faso, the pressure from urban centers dependent on water resources from the Volta basin has made wastewater use in UPA a common practice. In many part of the basin wastewater is the only available surface water for irrigation in the dry season and a reliable nutrient-rich source that secures the livelihoods of famers engaged in UPA
Guiding the sustainable management of rice landscapes in the uplands
(Other, 2009) Pandey, S.
For the 20 million people whose livelihood directly depends on land and water resources in upper catchments of the Mekong and the Red River basins, improving the productivity of rice could help to break the cycle of poverty, food insecurity and environmental degradation that characterizes the area. Farmers living in these catchments are extremely poor, their main agricultural activity consisting of producing rice and other food items for house hold consumption. Increasingly population pressure has forced many farmers onto marginal agricultural land, particularly steep sloping land where land use practices are contributing to soil erosion and water losses. The high incident of poverty in this area often directly correlates with the degree of rice self-sufficiency. Helping farmers produce rice more productively is a key entry point for converting the vicious cycle of law poverty-environmental degradation into a virtuous cycle that raises productivity, increases income and protects and the environment.
Taking A Second Look At Traditional Institutional Arrangements For Transboundary Water Governance In Africa
(Other, 2009) Sullivan, Amy
In sub-saharan Africa, there are around 63 transboundary river basins whose water cut across nations, catchments and regions. Most formal management of transboundary water is done through treaties, agreement and protocols between the states which share a given water source. However traditional arrangement and customary law still govern a large portion of water use especially in rural areas. Efficient development and management of resource in these basins require cooperation among the riparian countries and institutional arrangements that expects the complexity of sharing water recource between different users and uses.
Payment for Environmental Services: offering smallholder famers a choice for sustainable change
(Other, 2009) Moreno, Alonso
The Challenge Program on Water and Food project ‘Payment for environmental services as a mechanism for promoting rural development in the upper watersheds of the tropics’. This project locks at ways in which the negative affect of unsustainable land use can be minimized.in five Andean watersheds, it explore the feasibility of credit arrangement and direct payments to poor famers in the upper catchment to improve land use practice and family income. Credit provides poor famers with a choice to change agricultural practices that degrade water and soil and compromise the livelihood of communities living downstream. By recognizing the nature of the natural resource base as provide of environmental services, the project s liking the poor smallholder famer in the upper catchments with the beneficiaries of these services in lower catchments.
More animal per drop: searching for livestock– water productivity gains in the Nile Basin
(Case Study, 2008) Peden, Donald G.
Good management of livestock watering is critical to maintaining the quality of the environment and human health. The use of troughs or other dedicated water points that are separate from human water sources can prevent contamination by waterborne diseases. It also conserves riparian vegetation and leaves stream and river sediments undisturbed. Provision of water to dairy cattle in their stalls greatly reduces the stress on them, allowing significant increases in milk production.
Participatory crop breeding reaps benefits for Eritrea
(Other, 2009) Grando, Stefania
Few countries are in such acute need of agricultural development as Eritrea,a nation plagued by recurring drought.Its soils are largely parched and unproductive,leading to chronic hunger and poverty for many of its people.Increasing the water productivity of the country ’s most widely grown crops is a priority for government and national researchers. A CPWF project is building on previous work in this field to do just that.Its focus is the Setit-Tekeze River Basin in the western corner of Eritrea.(This is also called the Atbara Basin,Atbara being the name for the Tekeze Riveras it winds through Sudan before joining the Nile). The project,“Improving water productivity of cereals and food legumes in the Atbara River Basin of Eritrea ”,aims to develop and disseminate varieties of barley,wheat,chickpea,lentil,faba bean, cowpea and grass pea that combine drought tolerance with good nutritional characteristics and resistance to diseases and pests.It is also exploring optimum blends for mixed cropping,a risk avoidance strategy that mitigates against the worst effects of drought.
Integrated farming enhances rainwater and soil productivity
(Other, 2009) Tabo, Ramadjita
The project team investigated the potential for a number of other high value tree crops for inclusion in the system (in addition to Ziziphus mauritania and Acacia colei, , described in box). Analysis of the data is not yet complete, but the responses of participating farmers in Ghana and Burkina Faso to the SEF suggest that they are delighted at the prospect of a diversified and integrated production system that addresses most of their problems. While the SEF is in many ways a self-contained concept, it has great potential for integration with other promising technologies, such as conservation tillage, conservation agriculture, micro-dose fertilization (involving the application of small quantities of fertilizers at the plantbase) and the ‘Zai’ method of planting in water-retaining pockets. Trials of these techniques are also under way across more than 30 sites in the Volta Basin.
Science navigates new routes to sustainable agroforestry
(Other, 2009) Amézquita Collazos, Edgar
Scientists from Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) in Colombia, the FAO and others have embarked on research under the CPWF to gain a detailed understanding of the reasons why QSMAS works and to establish a plan for applying the system else where. The CPWF project responsible for the research, ‘Quesungualslash and mulch agroforestry system (QSMAS): improving crop water productivity, food security and resource quality in the sub-humid tropics,’ aims to answer six main questions: How does the system work? What are the driving factors behind its adoption? Is it sustainable? How can it be improved? What environmental services does it provide? Can the system or its components be extrapolated to other tropical areas?

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