Building Climate Resilience into Agricultural Water Management

Alok K Sikka

IWMI Representative-India

International Water Management Institute

New Delhi1

Asia’s Vulnerability to Climate Change• Asia-Heart of the hunger; about 525 million hungry people with the majority

being in farming households

• IPCC 5th Assessment Report observes climate change is already happening in Asia and impacts are already being felt

• Average annual temperatures could rise by more than 2°C and more rainfall likely at higher latitudes by mid 21st century

• More likelihood of extreme rainfall events related to monsoons

• Increased water related risks -drought, flood, hails, cyclones and related water and food shortages.

2ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WGIIAR5-Chap24_FGDall.pdf

Climate Change and Asian Agriculture• Asian agriculture is extremely vulnerable to

climate change due to low adaptive capacity,increasing demand, degrading land and waterresources

• Impacts on food security will vary by region, with many regions to experience a decline in productivity

• The net cereal production in South Asian countries is projected to decline at least between 4 to 10% by the end of this century

• Agricultural water demand in arid and semi-arid regions of Asia estimated to increase by at least 10% for temperature increase of 1°C

• Building climate resilience through water and land management is a major challenge

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Source: Rama Rao et al.,2016

Building Resilience - Key to Sustainability

Capacity of a system to adapt & grow in the face of unforeseen changes and bounce back

Resilience

Sustainability

Integrating NRM in climate resilient farming system

Productivity

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NIRCA (National Institute on Climate Resilient Agriculture, ICAR)

CCAFS is promoting climate smart villages

Smart Interventions

• Building resilience by enhancing storage (in situ, surface and groundwater)

• Improving irrigation efficiency and water productivity

• Laser land leveling, zero-tillage & conservation agriculture

• Conjunctive use of good and poor quality GW / wastewater

• Crop diversification

• Water reform – policy, governance and institutions

DSR

BBF CA

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• UTFI - an innovative approach to transfer flood water to groundwater for irrigation: opportunity for managing extreme events

• Drought monitoring & management

• South Asia Drought Monitoring System (SADMS) uses multisource remote sensing observations and Integrated Drought Severity Index (IDSI) for

– Historical drought risk mapping and assessment, drought frequency, and duration;

– Useful in drought mitigation and decision-making process

• Water budget based stakeholder groundwater management

Smart Interventions – contd.

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utfi.iwmi.org

dms.iwmi.org

The Way Ahead

• Vulnerability assessment and risk mapping at micro level

• Demonstrate and promote locally appropriate climate resilient water and land management practices in a farming system perspective including institutional and policy options

• Early warning of droughts, floods and other climatic risks

• Develop Village/ Local Area climate risk and adaptation plans and its integration into development programs

• Incentivize adoption of climate resilient interventions

• Internalization of climate scenarios in design and operation of water infrastructures

• Strengthening of capacity for adaptation and mitigation

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Thank you

a.sikka@cgiar.org

See: http://iwmi.org

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