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WATER COOPERATION, SUSTAINABILITY AND POVERTY ERADICATIONManaging water, sustainability and povertyreduction through collective community actionSuhas P. Wani, K. H. Anantha and William D. Dar, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid TropicsAccess to and management of land and water resources needto improve significantly to ensure sustainable and inclusivedevelopment. With increasing demand for food productionto meet the needs of the growing population, increasing incomesand changing food habits, water scarcity will intensify. Estimatesindicate that present food production requires some 7,000 km 3 /year of consumptive fresh water. Of this, 1,800 km 3 /year originatesfrom bluewater (run-off) use in irrigation and the remaining5,200 km 3 /year from direct greenwater (rainwater as soil moisture)use in rain-fed agriculture.Two hot-spot regions of the world emerge in terms of water needsfor food and livelihoods: Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and Asia. For SSAindications suggest a tripling of agricultural water demand by 2025,and an almost five-fold increase by 2050.1 By 2025, an estimated1.8 billion people will live in countries or regions with absolutewater scarcity, with almost half of the world living in conditions ofwater stress. Nearly 1.2 billion people across the world live in areasof physical water scarcity, while another 1.6 billion face what canbe called economic water shortage. The situation is only expectedto worsen as population growth, climate change, investment andmanagement shortfalls restrict the amount of water available topeople. Land degradation and moisture stress have largely resultedin low crop yields, as the current farmers’ yields are two to five timeslower than achievable crop yields in Asia and Africa.2 At the sametime climate change brings additional risks and further unpredictabilityof returns for farmers. This calls for improved governanceof land and water resources and a closer integration of policies,combined with increased and more strategic investment targetingfood security and poverty alleviation.3Need for a holistic approachIn this regard, a major concern is to rehabilitate existing vast tractsof degraded land and manage water resources efficiently to ensurelivelihood support for rural populations in these regions. Consideringthe existing mismatch between resource availability and management,the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics(ICRISAT) and its partners have demonstrated several innovativeup-scalable options to effectively tackle the problem at micro-level.The integrated watershed management approach aims at applying aholistic approach to water management that acknowledges the vitalrole played by both greenwater and bluewater flows in sustaining directand indirect ecological functions and services benefiting humans. 4Both greenwater and bluewater are generated in the landscape, andintegrated water resource management is the key for sustainabledevelopment and management of water at small catchment scale,which is recommended for enhancing the efficiency ofwater in rain-fed areas. 5 Indications are that greenwaterdominates food production, as consumptive use of greenwateris four times larger than that of bluewater. Fieldmeasurements of rain-fed grain yields and actual greenwaterflows indicated that by doubling yields from 1 to2 t ha -1 in semi-arid tropical agroecosystems, greenwaterproductivity may improve from approximately 3,500 m 3t -1 to less than 2,000 m 3 t -1 . Further, the conventionalsectoral approach to water management produced lowwater use efficiencies resulting in increased demand forwater to produce food. Therefore, there is a need for aholistic approach based on converging all the necessaryaspects of natural resource conservation, their efficientuse, production functions through enabling policies andmuch-needed investment in fragile areas. This calls fora community-based approach involving stakeholders asdecision makers.Innovative model for watershed managementICRISAT has developed and adopted a consortiummodel of watershed management. This espouses theprinciples of collective action, convergence, cooperationand capacity building with technical backstoppingby a consortium of institutions comprising nationalagricultural research systems, development agencieslike government line departments, and non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs) to address the issues ofequity, efficiency, economics and environment. 6 Thenew integrated community watershed model providestechnological options for the management of run-off,water harvesting, in-situ conservation of rainwater forgroundwater recharging and supplemental irrigation,appropriate nutrient and soil management practices,waterway systems, crop production technology, andappropriate farming systems with income-generatingmicro-enterprises for improving livelihoods whileprotecting the environment. The current model ofwatershed management adopted by ICRISAT and itspartners involves environment-friendly options and theuse of new science tools which, along with the conceptof the consortium approach, emphasise empoweringfarmers through capacity building and adopt a conceptof convergence in every activity in the watershed. 7To provide the necessary knowledge to farmers, anICRISAT-led consortium provided technical backstopping[ 218 ]