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Agricultural water management (AWM) interventions are increasingly being promoted as a first step to enable positive development, alleviating food insecurity and poverty in the smallholder farming systems that dominate rural sub-Sahara Africa and South Asia.
Rural African market
Photo: “Tenderete en medio de la montaña” by Carlos ZGZ, Public Domain Dedication (CC0)
These AWMs range from in-situ soil and water management improvements (conservation tillage, terraces, pitting) to supplemental and full irrigation systems, drawing water from a wide variety of sources in the landscape. However, re-allocation of water can potentially undermine other uses of the same water, for other livelihood purposes or, indirectly, by reducing availability for support of different ecosystem services.
For this case study in the Nariarlé watershed in Burkina Faso, current livelihood strategies were studied and then potential opportunities and possible water related impacts of AWM interventions reviewed. Scenarios were developed through consultations with local watershed experts to identify potential impacts of various AWM interventions on the livelihoods present and water resources available in Nariarlé. An assessment of watershed-level relevant formal and informal actors identified opportunities and constraints for AWM implementation as well as potential options for negotiating negative externalities of AWM interventions.
Other publication / A set of 116 images can be used with the Resource Flow mapping tool and other sensitization tools in the Clean and Green framework.
Other publication / Seven perspectives on how the current food crisis and the global interlinkages of the agricultural sector are unfolding in East Africa and Southeast Asia.
Other publication / This discussion brief presents an updated version of Clean and Green framework, and gives an overview of tools that support the implementation in Burkina Faso.
