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INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ON WATER SCIENCES AND RESEARCHModelling the effects of improved on-farm water managementat the basin scaleWater harvesting involves the collection and conservation of scarce rainwaterresources to increase water availability for plant growth and combat desertificationLand and water management technologies, such as the microcatchmentwater harvesting technique practised in Jordan, use the landform to collectscarce water resources, conserving them in the soil and increasing wateravailability for natural plant growth or crop production. Collected water isused to supply barley fields and shrubs through a series of constructedbasins and outlets. Farmers have to be prepared to invest labour inconstruction and maintenance of the systems, and require skills to evaluateand maximize their effectiveness. The Jordanian National Center forAgricultural Research and Extension (NCARE) works in collaboration withfarmers and farmers’ associations to demonstrate and transfer these skillsthrough practical experimentation on farmers’ own land, and organizes fielddays for farmers and decision-makers to view the results. Methodologicalsupport for the use of focus groups and other rapid appraisal techniques isprovided through collaboration with the University of Florida and ICARDA’sSocioeconomic, Gender and Policy Research Program.Collaborative studies undertaken with the Jordanian University of Scienceand Technology and Texas A&M have introduced a soil water assessmenttool to model the effects of the water harvesting on hydrology, erosion andvegetation. Scientific exchanges involving WLI research teams from othercountries, ICARDA and IWMI have introduced the research team to waterevaluation and planning tools for assessment of the water balance at basinscale. Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign haveintroduced consideration of downscaled global climate models and climatechange scenarios. From 2014 collaborative research and cooperation willenable the WLI teams to project future basin-level water balance scenarioswith and without water harvesting and other integrated land and otherwater management practices.land degradation an water scarcity in drylands also face these challenges,and have sometimes had to admit collective failure. Followingthese experiences, considerable comparative achievements have beenmade through WLI so far, and the lessons learned may be useful inenabling the transition from a single-donor initiative to a successfulmulti-donor scientific cooperation and collaboration across MENA.The available literature on communities of practice and collectiveaction highlights the need for groups to identify common objectivesand establish trust through standard procedures for evidencebaseddecision-making and an agreed plan of action. Three years ofconsultation enabled WLI to develop a set of common objectives todemonstrate that integrated land and water management can improvethe livelihoods of rural households. Another three years of seedfundedcollaborative field testing work by ICARDA, NARES and USand MENA universities has nurtured a budding research for developmentinitiative, which could bear fruit. There is now a need forthis to be collectively recognized and projected across an appropriateImage: T. Oweistimeframe for sustainable land and water managementimpact – i.e. at least 10 years.Innovative approaches for research anddevelopmentWLI is a grounded, site-based initiative that brings internationalpartners to the field, not just the debating table.It follows the proven ‘Water Benchmarks’ approach establishedby ICARDA for various agro-ecologies, wherebyscientific cooperation concentrates donor support forpilot testing of integrated water, land use and livelihoodstrategies developed at selected sites across the region. Thecritical mass and layering of successive investigations atthese sites ensures that a strong body of data and analysisfrom different disciplines is available to track and verifythe effects of land and water management strategies andtechnologies, and evaluate their suitability for scaling up/out to other areas of rain-fed, irrigated and rangeland agroecosystems.Much of the research is participatory, and isoften carried out with farmers on their own land.WLI donors and partners are committed to workingtogether in the drylands and enjoy spending time in thefield with collaborators and beneficiaries. However, someWLI sites are in areas difficult to access. To keep track ofthe WLI research teams’ progress and share informationamong research partners, beneficiaries, donors and thepublic, WLI has established a monitoring and evaluationsystem using USAID’s Feed the Future indicators.Moving beyond the tracking of progress, USAID haschampioned the projection and measurement of livelihoodimpacts from improved land and water managementthrough WLI in the belief that these are at the heart of everyone’sdevelopment agendas. The WLI teams have adoptedonly a small number of indicators that are already operationalor can be operationalized during the coming year,without resorting to using an over-burdensome system.Although no indicator alone captures impact, togetherthey provide the best available means to do so. Otherinternational scientific initiatives, including several fundedthrough the European Union and the Global EnvironmentFacility, have previously designed and operationalized sucha system, but were not able to design a system that wouldbe acceptable to all concerned national governments anddonors. Through WLI, instead of endlessly searching for aperfect blueprint, the system can be declared operationalwhen it is already in place across the region. This is thanksto scientific support from ICARDA and participatinguniversities, which has given the NARES the confidence toadopt workable methodologies and benefit from a networkof peer-reviewers to improve them.Cooperation to measure impactsCreating an operational system for monitoring progressin integrated land and water management to improverural livelihoods was a daunting task that none of thepartners could have achieved alone. Although researchersand resource managers intuitively knew that theywere improving rural livelihoods by enhancing landand water management, most were not well-equipped[ 317 ]