Water International

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Water, food and livelihoods in river basins Simon E. Cook , Myles J. Fisher , Meike S. Andersson , Jorge Rubiano & Mark Giordano To cite this article: Simon E. Cook , Myles J. Fisher , Meike S. Andersson , Jorge Rubiano & Mark Giordano (2009) Water, food and livelihoods in river basins, Water International, 34:1, 13-29, DOI: 10.1080/02508060802673860 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02508060802673860

Published online: 12 Feb 2009.

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Date: 17 January 2017, At: 12:59

Water International Vol. 34, No. 1, March 2009, 13–29

Water, food and livelihoods in river basins 1941-1707 0250-8060 RWIN Water International, International Vol. 34, No. 1, December 2009: pp. 1–29

Simon E. Cooka*, Myles J. Fisherb, Meike S. Anderssona, Jorge Rubianoc and Mark Giordanod Water S.E. Cook International et al.

a Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), Cali, Colombia; bComidas Limitada (COMIL), Cali, Colombia; cUniversidad Nacional (UNAL), Palmira, Colombia; dInternational Water Management Institute (IWMI), Battaramulla, Sri Lanka

(Received 18 July 2008; final version received 5 December 2008) Conflicting demands for food and water, exacerbated by increasing population, increase the risks of food insecurity, poverty and environmental damage in major river systems. Agriculture remains the predominant water user, but the linkage between water, agriculture and livelihoods is more complex than “water scarcity increases poverty”. The response of both agricultural and non-agricultural systems to increased pressure will affect livelihoods. Development will be constrained in closed basins if increased demand for irrigation deprives other users or if existing agricultural use constrains non-agricultural activities and in open basins if agriculture cannot feed an expanding or changing population or if the river system loses capacity due to degradation or over-exploitation. Keywords: poverty; agriculture; water poverty; water scarcity; livelihoods; closed basins; stagnant agricultural production; degradation; over-exploitation

Introduction Water supports livelihoods of all people through water-consuming agricultural and industrial activities, through consumption and sanitation and through environmental services. Evidence of a global water and food “crisis” is emerging (Seckler and Amarasinghe 2000), in which increasing demands for food and water will lead to conflict and serious loss of well-being for large numbers of people. But what is the actual nature of the problem? The objectives of the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food1 (CPWF) are to alleviate poverty, improve health and ensure environmental security, and hence the primary objective of the programme should be an analysis of the evidence of linkages between water, agriculture and livelihoods. The analysis must do the following:

• Define the potential links between water, agricultural water use and livelihoods. It is

essential to clarify this complex problem and to prevent a misunderstanding of the correlation between cause and effect.

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] ISSN 0250-8060 print/ISSN 1941-1707 online © 2009 International Water Resources Association DOI: 10.1080/02508060802673860 http://www.informaworld.com

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• Define processes that link water, agriculture and livelihoods in order to

understand and quantify the precise nature of problems, as they occur within basins. • Identify options for specific interventions, based on analysis of the opportunities and risks. Our objective in this article is to report on the nature of these links, as they occur in several basins in the world. Data are presented from analyses in the CPWF basins of Mekong, Volta, São Francisco and Karkheh, and from initial insights gained in several other basins. In the first section we examine the inference that water scarcity caused by increasing agricultural demand for water leads to loss of livelihood, and why this belief may be based on a false premise. In the second section we look for empirical evidence that water scarcity caused by agricultural demand leads to loss of livelihood. In the third section we reflect on the types of interventions that are intended to address the problems. Water stress and poverty: a rhetorical concept? The global population is anticipated to increase to over 9 billion by the year 2050 (UNEP; www.unep.org/vitalwater/), placing major new demands on global food production. For some, this is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Predictions of catastrophe as a consequence of population increase and resultant starvation extend back to the times of Malthus and beyond, but by and large, they have not eventuated. Although history is peppered with temporary or localized food shortages, the food production system has, over the long term, responded to demand. The Green Revolution is considered to be a successful example of how the food system can respond to demand. This concerted programme of agricultural development was triggered in the 1960s in response to the threat posed by widespread chronic food shortages. The programme was sufficiently successful that, contrary to the predicted catastrophe, increasing demands for food over the past 40 years have been met by equal or greater increases in production, to the extent that food prices in real terms have declined (Evenson and Gollin 2003). Increased food production has resulted in greater consumption of water. Agriculture is the major user of fresh water globally, and as the food production system gears itself to meet the demands of the increased population, it uses more water. This must be considered against the demands from other sectors, including sanitation, waste disposal, industry and hydropower, which also increase with increasing population. Further, we now recognize the importance of maintaining river function invariably reduces the total water available for all human uses. The overwhelming conclusion is that fresh water is likely to become an increasingly scarce resource globally. If the demand for food is set to increase, but the volume of water available to agriculture is stable or decreasing, it follows, logically, that there must be major changes. First amongst these is that water productivity, that is, the benefit expressed as kilogram food, kilocalorie or income, per unit volume of water consumed, must increase (Molden et al. 2001). There is evidence that the global system is already responding to some extent. Water productivity in some areas is beginning to increase, such that projections of future water withdrawals are being moderated from earlier worrying levels (Gleick 2003). Nevertheless, in other areas, evidence of over-exploitation, including increasing numbers of closed basins,2 reduction of groundwater resources, loss of wetlands and habitat fragmentation, is also emerging.

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What is the difference between stress and dynamic response to change? The global situation seems quite clear: demand for water for food production is increasing. However, additional withdrawal is not possible because of competing demands from other sectors and water productivity must therefore increase to enable more food to be produced from less water. Compilations of data at national scales provide a broad insight of variations in water stress, expressed as per capita water availability or its equivalent, and reinforce the impression that an increasing number of countries might experience water shortages in the coming decades (Falkenmark et al. 1989, Gleick 2000). However, such assessments give only a partial description of the impacts of increasing pressures upon water as a result of growing demands for food. According to Molle and Mollinga (2003), simple measures of water scarcity can be misleading, for example, water availability is high in Senegal, Mali and Iran and low in countries such as Israel. They observe that measures that provide useful information of stress at the global scale are unreliable indicators of the problem that eventuates on the ground. They proceed to examine a spectrum of increasingly complex indicators, only to conclude that the call for quantifiable measures of this complex problem can risk “poor science” and make “smoke screens” (p. 542), which can be used to serve political ends.

Analysis to improve our understanding of the effects of water on poverty The common perception is that the water demand by agriculture is leading to water shortage, and depriving people of this basic livelihood support. The evidence we look at below paints a much more complex picture in which people adapt to emerging opportunities and constraints. We believe that the idea that water scarcity leads automatically to loss of livelihood is over-simplified. Kemp-Benedict (2008) analysed the links between livelihood assets and well-being in the Mekong Basin to show the partial correlations with other poverty measures. Other detailed case studies show that the link between agricultural water management and poverty can be extremely variable and complex (Castillo et al. 2007). Although all such insights are useful, the challenge is to bridge the gap between broad trends in basin systems and detailed insights from case studies, which, no matter how valid, do not easily relate to the global problem. To simplify the water and food system in a form that can be reviewed systematically, we consider four scenarios in which the food and water crisis occurs on the ground. Scenarios A and B typify situations in which agricultural water demand causes problems of water scarcity. Scenarios C and D focus more on situations in which the problems are that insufficient benefits accrue from the use of water by agriculture:

• Scenario A. Increased demand for food encourages irrigators to use more water at the direct expense of other water users. Losses may be incurred by fellow irrigators, downstream abstractors dependent on return flows or environmental flows and the people who depend on them. During the period 1950–2000, the global irrigated area doubled from approximately 140 million hectares (Mha) to about 280 Mha (Molle et al. 2007), leading to increasing incidence of river basin closures (Falkenmark and Molden 2008) with consequent water scarcity for other users and loss of ecosystem services. • Scenario B. Water use by agriculture (including so-called virtual water) remains more or less constant, but the volume committed to agriculture constrains the supply to other water users as they respond to increasing demands. These demands may be

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S.E. Cook et al. for water for hydropower to meet an increasing demand for energy, industrial use or sanitation, protection of aquatic ecosystems (e.g., restoration of native salmon runs in the US Pacific Northwest) or preserving environmental flows. The consequences are indirect, and are likely to be seen as foregone income. In fact, domestic and industrial users are given priority because of which agriculture is forced to expand into formerly natural areas to maintain its inflows and thus reduce the environmental benefits provided by these natural areas (Molle et al. 2007). • Scenario C. Increasing population places demands for food that cannot be satisfied by rainfed production. Water use by agriculture is not affected substantially, but food security is reduced in the face of increasing demand as a consequence of a decrease in per capita production. Castillo et al. (2007) describe some of the difficulties faced in the attempt to increase water productivity. • Scenario D. Water productivity is reduced by over-exploitation, degradation or pollution. The most obvious case of this is the loss of fishery production as a result of over-exploitation under increased demand of water. The effect is reduced food security or income (Dugan et al. 2007).

Scenario A describes a process in which consumption by large irrigators deprives other potential users from benefiting from the water they use. The argument seems a straightforward case of inequitable use of water rights, in which one group of actors reduces the availability of water to others without their agreement. Such loss of a collective resource is proposed by van Koppen et al. (2007) as a cause of local poverty and a reason to promote multiple water use systems that can lift those out of poverty who otherwise would lack access to water (Castillo et al. 2007). Molle et al. (2007) identify political and economic reasons why irrigation over-development occurs to the point of basin closure. There are many examples of this situation, the most spectacular of which is outside the CPWF, namely the demise of the Aral Sea as a result of irrigation of large-scale cotton farms, initiated during the Soviet era in Central Asia. The Aral Sea was the fourth-largest lake in the world with a surface area of 55,100 km2 (Figure 1). In the 1960s the rivers that fed it (the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya) were diverted to provide water for irrigated cotton in Soviet Central Asia. By 1987, about 60% of its volume had been lost, its depth had decreased by 14 m and its salt concentration had doubled, killing the fish on which commercial fishing depended. Wind storms became toxic, carrying dust and salts deposited on the exposed sea floor. Life expectancy of people living near the area too became significantly lower than in the surrounding areas. The Aral Sea has now been divided into two water bodies. A dam across the southern part of the northern Aral Sea seems to be maintaining its level, but the southern Aral Sea is forecast to disappear within 15 years. The irrigation schemes themselves may be sustainable, although we have no data to substantiate this statement. Regardless, the consequences for the Aral Sea and the populations dependent on it were disastrous (Figure 2). In the São Francisco CPWF basin in Brazil, irrigated agriculture has become more predominant over the past 15–20 years (Bassoi et al. 2006). Analysis of flows shows the potential impact of water abstraction by large farmers in the São Francisco on their poorer smallholder neighbours (Manetta et al., this issue). There is a wide disparity between wealthier farmers, who are able to respond to supermarketization, and poorer smallholder farmers, who cannot (Torres et al. 2007). A scheme to divert more of the waters of the São Francisco to support farmers in the drier northern parts of the basin has been proposed off and on for years, but was shelved after a severe drought in 2001. It has recently received

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The location of the Aral Sea in Central Asia.

support at the highest level of government, but is meeting substantial resistance from the broader community. In the Mekong CPWF basin in Southeast Asia, living standards have generally improved across the basin, but important areas of poverty remain. Owing to population growth and increasing economic development, the pressure on the natural resource base, particularly water resources, has increased in recent decades (MRC 2003, Foran 2008, Mainuddin et al. 2008). Several instances are reported in which plans to increase irrigation schemes are expected to threaten critical environmental flows and to disrupt fisheries in Thailand and Cambodia (see below). Loss of livelihood assets seems related to hotspots of poverty in the basin (Kemp-Benedict 2008). A well-publicized victory for pressure groups opposing this has been the raising of the Pak Mun barrier (Figure 3). The Pak Mun dam was constructed by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) in 1991–1994 across the Mun River, a tributary of the Mekong. The total cost of construction was US$233 million of which the World Bank financed US$22 million (SEARIN 2004a). The stated purpose of the dam was to provide scope for development of villagers living along the Mun River and for the development of Thailand as a whole by generating electricity. However, the dam generated just 0.1% of electricity in Thailand and destroyed the fisheries on which the Mun River villagers’ livelihoods depended by preventing upstream migration of fish from the Mekong. In 2001, bowing to intense pressure, the Thai government opened the sluice gates of the dam. The fisheries immediately began to recover, and step by step, the flooded lands also started to recover. The sluice gates are now opened for four months each year and villagers’ livelihoods have improved (SEARIN 2004b), although probably not to pre-dam levels. In the Karkheh CPWF Basin in Iran, the area of the transboundary wetland Al-Hawizeh in Iran and Iraq has declined by two-thirds to 1025 km2 between 1973–1976 and 2000

Figure 2. The Aral Sea in 1973 and 2004. Source: United Nations Environment Programme. Available from: http://na.unep.net/digital_atlas2/webatlas.php?id=11 [Accessed 1 December 2008]

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Figure 3. Location of the Pak Mun dam and the Tonlé Sap (Grand Lac) in the Lower Mekong Basin. Source: Available from: http://www.dams.org/images/maps/map_mekong.htm [Accessed 1 December 2008]

(Figure 4). The Iranian part alone (called Hawr Al-Azim) was reduced by 46% over this period. Hawr Al-Azim now accounts for 21% of the total area of the Al-Hawizeh wetland. The shoreline of Hawr Al-Hawizeh/Al-Azim has been in steady retreat during the past decade and closure of the Karkheh Basin is envisaged by the early part of this century. Irrigation is allocated the largest share and by 2025 it is expected to reach a volume roughly equal to the renewable water supply in an average year (Masih et al. 2008). Unless urgent remedial action is taken, destruction of the Mesopotamian marshlands is likely to continue unabated. Indeed, it is likely to accelerate as a result of substantial water retention by the Karkheh Dam and plans to transfer water from its reservoir to Kuwait. Analysis of flows in the Karkheh in Iran indicates that the abstraction of irrigation water in the lower reaches of the river diverts flows that otherwise would support the recovery of the Hawr Al-Azim wetland. In the Volta CPWF basin in West Africa, uncontrolled expansion of small reservoirs for agricultural development in the Upper Volta is causing some concern about inflows to Lake Volta, which provides a critical source of income for Ghana by generating hydropower. Unlike in the case of the Karkheh Basin, initial hydrology analysis by Lemoalle (2008) using the Water Evaluation and Planning System (WEAP, SEI 2008) suggests that adverse effects are unlikely. How loss of water availability causes poverty in specific groups needs to be evaluated carefully. First, analyses cited in Molle et al. (2007) show that abstraction into an irrigation system does not necessarily remove it from further use. Return flows from “leaky” irrigation can provide valuable local sources of recharge for downstream users. Second, the critical

Figure 4. The extent of the transboundary Al-Hawizeh marshes in 1972–1976 (left) and in 2000 (right). The Karkheh River enters the marshes in their northeast. Source: United Nations Environment Programme. Available from: http://na.unep.net/publications/meso.pdf [Accessed 1 December 2008].

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parameters are not just the distribution of water but also the relative productivities of the water so used. If the water consumed by irrigation can benefit other sectors, this can lead to a common gain, effectively substituting food security by income security. For example, a major report (ANA et al. 2004, p. 264) indicates problems in the lower São Francisco Basin and its coastal zone caused by alterations in basin hydrology, but it is difficult to evaluate these problems without referring to the major reductions in poverty that have accompanied these changes (Torres et al. 2007). By analysing food poverty in Ecuador, Farrow et al. (2005) determined that the relationship of irrigation with food security could be both positive and negative in different areas, depending on whether irrigation also provided salaried employment. The potential benefit from irrigation depends on the degree of connectivity with highervalue markets in which the irrigated product is sold. Scenario B is when existing water use by agriculture, as the largest consumer of water, constrains the development of non-rural uses that would otherwise improve livelihoods. Basin closure is already estimated to affect 1.4 billion people worldwide (Falkenmark and Molden 2008), which in turn hinders development. Expansion of much-needed hydropower to support non-rural development may be constrained by an absolute scarcity of water. A hydropower scheme has been suspended in Uganda for this reason. Water resources for several large cities in Latin America are said to be under pressure as a result of prior land use change in upper catchments (Tognetti and Johnson 2008). For example, Bogotá, Colombia, with its satellite cities of Chía, Cota, Soacha, Cajicá and La Calera, had an estimated population of 8.24 million as of 2007 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogot%C3%A1). Bogotá is located on a high plateau in the Eastern Cordillera of the Andes at an altitude of 2640 m, which makes it the third-highest major city in the world after La Paz and Quito. Land use in the limited area of lands higher than the city is critically important for the supply of potable water to the city. Run-off, leaching and soil erosion in the surrounding highlands from arable farms, principally producing potatoes, and intensive cattle ranching pollute rivers with N, P, solid animal waste and other sediments, which limits their use as sources of potable water unless the water undergoes expensive treatment (Tognetti and Johnson 2008). Solutions are being explored to improve the provision of water through Payment for Ecosystem Services schemes, in which agriculturalists relinquish their demands for water in return for financial reward. Analysis of the development foregone because of existing patterns of water use by agriculture is difficult and can only be understood by taking into account the development trajectory. Scenario C is one in which food security and incomes are constrained by an inability of rainfed agriculture to respond to demand. Population increases, but total production does not respond adequately and water productivity remains static. This is a waterfor-food issue because water productivity is not increasing and hence not contributing towards the solution outlined in the first section of this article. This condition appears in the Volta Basin (Terrasson et al. 2009), but also in many other parts of sub-Saharan Africa where per capita food production has remained stagnant over the past 40 years (Bationo et al. 2007). In the same zone, areas currently affected by changes in rainfall patterns and length of the vegetation season owing to climate change are another example (SWAC/ECOWAS 2006). Similar conditions also occur in localized areas within basins that are otherwise responding strongly to demands for food, including in northern parts of the São Francisco Basin. Urban populations in Belo Horizonte and Brasilia and its surrounding satellite cities are increasing both because of increasing economic activity and because of migration of the rural poor to the cities. In the Mekong, productivity of rainfed rice in Cambodia and Northeast Thailand per capita is substantially stagnant (Mainuddin et al. 2008, Kirby and Mainuddin 2009; Figure 5).

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Rice production, kg/capita

1200 Laos 1000 Thailand

800 600

Cambodia

400

Vietnam

200 0 1990

1995

2000 Year

2005

Vietnam Central highlands Vietnam Mekong River Delta

Figure 5. Annual rice production per capita in the Lower Mekong Basin. Source: Kirby and Mainuddin 2009.

The final scenario, D, is where livelihoods are threatened by a loss of water productivity that is caused by degradation of land or water resources. This may result from pollution, overexploitation or land degradation (e.g., salinization). There is no change in the water balance but a loss of water productivity and system resilience to pressure. This process is feared to threaten the livelihoods of over a million people living in and around the Tonlé Sap in the Mekong (Figure 3). Tonlé Sap is a lake with a dry season area of 2700 km2 and a depth of about 1 m, connected to and approximately on the same level as the Mekong (Figure 6).

Figure 6. The Tonlé Sap and its flood plain in Cambodia. Source: Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonl%C3%A9_Sap

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During the wet season, flood waters from the Mekong back up into the Tonlé Sap, whose level can rise to as much as 9 m and can flood over 16,000 km2. As the levels of the Mekong fall during the dry season, the accumulated water drains from the Tonlé Sap back into the Mekong. This seasonal flow and ebb provides a surge of nutrient flows and very favourable conditions for fish, making the Tonlé Sap one of the most productive inland fisheries in the world, supporting over 3 million people and providing over 75% of Cambodia’s annual inland fish catch and 60% of the Cambodians’ protein intake. Any degradation that affects this surge and flow is likely to have a major impact on livelihoods in the region. Large urban areas in the upper part of catchments can negatively affect downstream water users (both agricultural and non-agricultural) by pollution. In the São Francisco river basin in Brazil, the large city of Belo Horizonte with a population of 4.98 million in the metropolitan region in 2007 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belo_Horizonte) is in the upper parts of the basin (Figure 7). The pollution that it causes creates problems for downstream users including fishers, who have become increasingly marginalized. Land degradation caused by overgrazing of common land in the Upper Karkheh Basin is of concern, although data from Ahmad et al. (2008) suggest that where farmers can connect to markets, higher-value animal products can actually increase water productivity, expressed as product gross value per cubic metre of water consumed. Degradation of groundwater by over-exploitation threatens the livelihoods of farmers in the Ganges (Rosegrant et al. 2002) and in the Mekong delta. Point- and non-point-source pollution have reduced water quality in the upper parts of the São Francisco River (ANA et al. 2004).

Figure 7. The São Francisco Basin, Brazil. Belo Horizonte is the capital of Minas Gerais state (MG on the map). Source: http://www.transportes.gov.br/bit/mapas/mapclick/hidro/bcsfran.htm.

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Pro-poor interventions in agricultural water use Pathways for improvements in livelihoods In this section we examine the way in which changes in agricultural water use influence livelihoods. Two general pathways can be distinguished (Figure 8). The first pathway, improving water availability, concerns the benefit from allocating water to individuals or groups. It addresses scenarios A and B in which the predominant factor is water distribution. The aim is to improve the total net gain from a volume of water, shared amongst many people. Some water users may lose access, but the overall trend is an increase in the number of people who gain. Here, collective action and social control are important assets if inequitable concentration of benefits is to be avoided. If people’s livelihoods are compromised as a result of lack of water, or lack of access to it, improvement may be brought about through changes in water governance (e.g., Dore 2008). Provision of water for direct consumption or irrigation is a simple intervention that governments have adopted widely as a means of supporting people, with mixed success. For example, access to irrigation has in many cases resulted in an increase in employment opportunities and a decrease in food prices (Stockle 2001). But gain is not guaranteed. If one group improves at the cost of another, there is no net gain. This is especially applicable when the irrigated area is expanded, which may benefit only wealthier farmers, thus resulting in neutral or even negative effects on poverty as has been the case in Bangladesh (van Koppen and Mahmad 1996). Therefore the desired intervention, in terms of improving total well-being, is to allocate water to ensure net gain. This is the intention of promoting multi-use systems. For example, in the Coello Basin in the Colombian Andes, poor water quality and conflicts in water use between farmers irrigating rice and city dwellers forced the development of a plan for multi-purpose benefits, including sanitation and industrial uses (Vanegas Gálvez 2002). Similarly, in a study for improving water sources for drinking and domestic uses in rural Tanzania, it was found that much more water was used for other uses (bathing, laundry, livestock and cleaning) than for drinking and cooking alone. On the contrary,

Figure 8.

Pathways to improving livelihoods through changes in agricultural water use.

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rural communities often did not abandon their traditional sources of water even when they had access to improved water sources (Madulu 2003). Bastakoti et al. (2008) noted the need to network beyond conventional water institutions to achieve multi-use systems. The second pathway to improve water productivity is to increase the per capita gain for each cubic metre of water consumed. This addresses the problems represented by scenarios C and D. In this case, change appears as improvement in the agricultural system, measurable as increased kilogram per cubic metre or dollar per cubic metre (kg/m3 or $/m3). Options to improve livelihood support from agricultural water use Scenario A The first scenario describes the situation in which increasing volumes of water are allocated to agriculture. The option is to cut back demand for water from the agricultural sector to a level that reflects its ability to support livelihoods. In this sense, high-productivity or high-value activities are preferable as they support more people through food or income support. Many examples of processes that encourage this exist, including the following:

• Water pricing policies to encourage high-value usage. • Water allocation policies to ensure provision of basic services. • Development of catchment groups to enhance communication between different users (e.g., Curtis and Lockwood 2000).

• Transboundary agreements to reduce risks of distrust and conflict (Lautze et al. 2005). Scenario B The second scenario describes a variation of scenario A in which water that is already committed to agriculture is required by other sectors to support development of nonagricultural activities. Some possibilities are as follows:

• Basin transfers of water from low- to high-value users (Wester 2008). • Development of payment for ecosystem services (PES) to promote the provision of adequate clean water (Swallow et al. 2007).

• Removal of exotic plants with high water consumption but low water productivity, such as the work-for-food programme in South Africa to reduce the demand for water by eucalypts and pines.

Scenario C The third scenario is one in which improvements in rainfed water productivity are sought to balance food production with water consumption. The changes that enable improved rainfed water productivity include an almost infinite array of technological, policy and financial innovations intended to correct problems of low and declining soil fertility, environmental degradation and limited access to viable markets by farmers (Mapfumo 2007).

• Technological interventions would include new germplasm, improved fertilizer targeting and conservation tillage packages.

• Policy interventions would include those to support investments to crop, livestock and fishery systems and policy support for agricultural research.

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• Financial interventions might include insurance to protect from climatic risks, subsidies for fertilizer or other inputs and improved supply chain management.

Scenario D The fourth scenario calls for protection of the quantity and quality of environmental services. Some components of this solution are as follows:

• Full valuation of environmental services. This would include the value of water

flowing through food systems, through to the value of carbon sequestration or biodiversity. • Mitigating the risk of land degradation caused by erosion, salinization, acidification or other damaging process. • Recognizing through policies the rights and responsibilities of all users of natural resources for improving the productivity and resilience of agricultural systems. Conclusions The purpose of analysing poverty with respect to water use is threefold: first, to define the links between water, agricultural water use and poverty; second, to understand and quantify the precise nature of problems, as they occur within basins; and, third, to identify opportunities for interventions, based on analysis of the opportunities and risks. An analysis of four river basins, plus a preliminary analysis of six other basins, highlight the linkages between water and food systems. Demand for food is increasing, and, with respect to the water it consumes, additional demand for food may be met in one of two ways: First demand may be met without any change in the overall water balance, if water productivity increases. Alternatively, the increasing demand for food will increase water use by agriculture at the same time as the demand for water by other sectors is also increasing. Together these will place increased stress on the hydrologic system. The effect of water stress on livelihoods, hence poverty, can be felt in a variety of ways. Additional water can be withdrawn, hence made unavailable for other demands. Basins may already be closed, constraining the capacity of alternative activities. The water side of the equation is linked to the food side and three things may occur here: The best is that agricultural water productivity increases to meet food demand without increasing water supply. But other effects may also occur. For example, water productivity may remain static, or, worse, water productivity may decline if land or water resources degrade. In general, the loss of livelihood assets that occurs if water or food systems do not adapt to change can lead people into poverty. This seems especially so for the poor who depend on natural resources for their livelihood. However, whether this actually occurs, and what form it takes, depends on many other factors. Then why is this a concern, if the systems adapt to change? The increased demand for water and food will not always be met, and this will place stress on the agricultural systems on which people depend. Some people, and we expect these to be the poorest, will suffer as a result of the reduced availability of water or food. Understanding how and where this happens is essential to meet the original goals of the CPWF to alleviate poverty and increase food and environmental security. Given the range of conditions that occur in basins, the relationship between water, agriculture and poverty seems unlikely to be general. Although there are some cases in

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which water scarcity is reported to cause poverty, people with less available water are not necessarily poorer than those with abundant water. In fact, some of the poorest people live in water-rich areas (the Andean hillsides for example and especially Bangladesh where the poor suffer disproportionately from flooding), and some of the richest live in water-scarce regions, such as Israel. Factors other than water add to the complexity, for example, land tenure, and are often a greater problem (Bugri 2008). For example, on the Lake Volta hinterland, local tribal chiefs, who control land tenure, preferentially grant tenure to members of their own tribes. Immigrant fisher folk are then unable to diversify their livelihoods and are thus unable to escape from poverty (Béné and Friend 2009). Other complicating factors include political instability and lack of institutional support for proper water management. Water scarcity is not equivalent to water unavailability. Local institutes and norms strongly influence the access to water of different groups of people. The effect of this discrepancy on overall livelihood support depends on the effectiveness with which the different groups use water. Water productivity describes the conversion of water consumed by agriculture into livelihood support, for example, the amount of grain produced for each cubic metre of water consumed. Estimates suggest that there is a vast potential for improvement in this conversion. For example, the potential water productivity of wheat is approximately 2 kg/m3, but it is rare to find systems with a conversion better than 0.5 or 0.6 kg/m3, and many areas have productivities of a fraction of that. The story seems to be repeated for other staple foods such as maize, rice, sorghum or millet. The realization of potential water productivity needs to take into account the complex linkages that couple different components of agricultural systems, because it is these linkages that determine their full value to livelihood support. Factors such as connectivity with markets or finance and the institutional coherence with which water and land resources are shared seem to have a major influence on performance. Unfortunately, these factors are difficult to measure but need to be considered in relation to the overall development trajectory affecting agriculture. Acknowledgements This research project is sponsored by the Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), in collaboration with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), whose support we gratefully acknowledge. MF thanks Comidas Limitada COMIL and its managing partner, Pamela May Clausen, for continued support.

Notes 1. 2.

http://www.waterandfood.org/ Basin closure refers to the situation when all the water resources within a basin are allocated (Falkenmark and Molden 2008).

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