International workshop on tackling water and food crisis in South Asia: Insights from the Indus-Gangetic basin, CPWF Basin Focal Project for the IG Basin, New Delhi

International Workshop on “Tackling Water and Food Crisis in South Asia: Insights from the Indus Gangetic Basin”
CPWF Basin Focal Project for the IG Basin
International Water Management Institute
2-3 December 2009, The Silver Oak Room, India Habitat Center, New Delhi, India

Project Background
Indus-Gangetic Basin (IGB) Focal Project is an initiative by the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF), lead by International Water Management Institute and with a host of global and national partners. Indus-Gangetic basin is one of the most populous in the world and given the diversity of agro-climatic, social and economic conditions in the four riparian countries — India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, it is clearly one of the most complex river basin systems in the world. Management of IGB water resources presents some formidable challenges and, therefore, the project was initiated to identify steps to be taken towards integrated management of the IGB’s water and land resources to improve productivity and ensure future sustainability of all production and ecosystems in the basin. The project was launched in April 2008 with the objective of conducting basin-wide analysis of the conditions, constraints and opportunities for improving agricultural water productivity and alleviating poverty through high potential interventions.

Project Highlights

• High population growth is a significant driver of depleting and degrading natural resources.
• Head Count Ratio (HCR) has improved significantly in the recent years; yet, income of a large part of the poor population is still well below the poverty line.
• Groundwater is the dominant water source and under threat in the IG basin.
• Climate change induced glacier flows shall have serious impacts for river flows.
• Land use changes can significantly increase flows, providing more freshwater flow into the Sundarban mangrove forests.
• Water productivity of both rice and wheat is generally low, implying great scope for improvement.
• General decline in WP from North-west to Southeast.
• The variability shows no direct relationship with climate conditions, implying the significance of irrigation.
• High surrogate water price is driving out smallholder irrigation.
• Agriculture electricity supply is dwindling and is increasingly unreliable.
• Much irrigation expansion in the basin is then occurring through increase in numbers of diesel pumps.
• Public irrigation systems grossly under-price irrigation; but these are getting marginalized despite massive government and donor investments.
• In the IGB, major challenge is to find ways of bringing down agricultural water use cost below the ‘upper threshold’ beyond which abundantly available water becomes too expensive for the poor.
• Adopting RCT s allow farmers to increase area, productivity and intensity of cropping
• Delayed transplanting of paddy saves precious groundwater and the energy.
• Integrated aquaculture-agriculture and multiple water use systems have great potential in IGB

Workshop objectives 

• Share the major findings from various work-packages.
• Synthesize research results and plans for knowledge exchange.
• Dissemination of project outputs and create an impact with the stakeholders.

Workshop outputs

• An evaluation of the results and recommendations of the project
• Report synthesizing project outputs
• Poverty and water poverty maps at national/ sub-national and household level in the basin.
• Water use and water productivity maps for the major crops/ systems.
• Assessment of water resources including the impact of glacier melts.

What would we learn?

• Clear understanding of the overall water situation in IGB
• Demographic pressures and their links to water and food
• Scope for water productivity improvement in IGB
• Policies and institutions enabling better WP by enhancing access to land and water
• Potential interventions for improving WP
• Use of RS/ GIS for basin level productivity mapping.
• Strengths and weaknesses of water governance laws and policies in the basin countries.
• Use of SWAT, SWAP, WEAP, SEBAL models.

For Project & Workshop related information

Dr. Bharat R Sharma
Project Leader & Head
(b.sharma@cgiar.org)

Ms. G Ambili
Project Associate (BFP-IGB)
(g.ambili@cgiar.org)