Water for people.pdf - WHO Thailand Digital Repository

S E C U R I N G F O O D F O R A G R O W I N G W O R L D P O P U L A T I O N / 2 0 92,420 km 3 in 2030. This finding is consistent with the one given inbox 8.2 earlier but it is based specifically on individual assessments foreach developing country. Harvested irrigated area (the cumulated areaof all crops during a year) is expected to increase by 33 percent from257 million hectares in 1998 to 341 million hectares in 2030. Thedisproportionate increase in harvested area is explained by expectedimprovements in irrigation efficiency, which will result in a reduction ingross irrigation water abstraction per hectare of crop. A small part ofthe reduction is due to changes in cropping patterns in China, whereconsumer preference is causing a shift from rice to wheat production.While some countries have reached extreme levels of water usefor agriculture, irrigation still represents a relatively small part of thetotal water resources of developing countries. The projectedincrease in water withdrawal will not significantly alter the overallpicture. At the local level, however, there are already severe watershortages, in particular in the Near East/North Africa region.Of the ninety-three developing countries surveyed by FAO, tenare already using more than 40 percent of their renewable waterresources for irrigation, a threshold used to flag the level at whichcountries are usually forced to make difficult choices between theiragricultural and urban water supply sectors. Another eight countrieswere using more than 20 percent, a threshold that can indicateimpending water scarcity. By 2030, south Asia will have reached the40 percent level, and the Near East and North Africa not less than58 percent. However, the proportion of renewable water resourcesallocated to irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and eastAsia in 2030 is likely to remain far below the critical threshold.The special role of groundwaterWater contained in shallow underground aquifers has played asignificant role in developing and diversifying agricultural production.This is understandable from a resource management perspective:when groundwater is accessible it offers a primary buffer against thevagaries of climate and surface water delivery. But its advantages arealso quite subtle. Access to groundwater can occasion a large degreeof distributive equity, and for many farmers groundwater has provedto be a perfect delivery system. Because groundwater is on demandand just-in-time, farmers have sometimes made private investmentsin groundwater technology as a substitute for unreliable orinequitable surface irrigation services. In many senses, groundwaterhas been used by farmers to break out of conventional commandand control irrigation administration. Some of the managementchallenges posed by large surface irrigation schemes are avoided,but the aggregate impact of a large number of individual users canbe damaging, and moderating the ‘race to the pump-house’ hasproved difficult. However, as groundwater pumping involves a directcost to the farmer, the incentives to use groundwater efficiently arehigh. These incentives do not apply so effectively where energy costsBox 8.3: Potential for improvements inagricultural water use efficiencyGlobal water strategies tend to focus on the need to increaseagricultural water use efficiency, reduce wastage and freelarge amounts of water for other, more productive uses aswell as sustaining the environmental services of rivers andlakes. While there is scope for improved use of water inagriculture, these improvements can only be made slowly andare limited by several considerations. First, there are largeareas of irrigated agriculture located in humid tropics wherewater is not scarce and where improved efficiency would notresult in any gain in water productivity. Second, water useefficiency is usually computed at the level of the farm orirrigation scheme, but most of the water that is not used bythe crops returns to the hydrological system and can be usedfurther downstream. In these conditions, any improvement inwater use efficiency at field level translates into limitedimprovement in overall efficiency at the level of the riverbasin. Finally, different cropping systems have differentpotential for improvement in water use efficiency. Typically,tree crops and vegetables are well adapted to the use oflocalized, highly efficient irrigation technologies, while suchequipments are not adapted to cereal or other crops.are subsidized; such distortion has arguably accelerated groundwaterdepletion in parts of India and Pakistan.The technical principles involved in sustainable groundwater andaquifer management are well known but practical implementation ofgroundwater management has encountered serious difficulties. This islargely due to groundwater’s traditional legal status as part of landproperty and the competing interests of farmers withdrawing waterfrom common-property aquifers (Burke and Moench, 2000). Abstractioncan result in water levels declining beyond the economic reach ofpumping technology; this may penalize poorer farmers and result inareas being taken out of agricultural production. When near the sea, orin proximity to saline groundwater, overpumped aquifers are prone tosaline intrusion. Groundwater quality is also threatened by theapplication of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides that percolate intoaquifers. These ‘non-point’ sources of pollution from agriculturalactivity often take time to become apparent, but their effects can belong-lasting, particularly in the case of persistent organic pollutants. Foran example of this, see the Seine-Normandy case study in chapter 19.Fossil groundwater, that is, groundwater contained in aquifersthat are not actively recharged, represents a valuable but