Changing Climate Fuels Need for Water Storage Diversification: Report

Jakarta: The report by the International Water Management Institute, released in Stockholm this week to coincide with World Water Week, said the challenge would prompt increased investment in diverse forms of water storage.

It called for an integrated approach combining small- and large-scale storage options rather than an overreliance on single solutions like big dams.

The options outlined in the report included the use of water from natural wetlands, water stored in the soil, groundwater beneath the earth’s surface, and water collected in ponds, tanks and reservoirs.

“Millions of farmers in communities dependent on rain-fed agriculture are at risk from decreasing and erratic availability of water,” said Colin Chartres, director general of the Sri Lanka-based IWMI.

“Climate change will hit these people hard, so we have to invest heavily and quickly in adaptation.”

The IWMI and its research partners estimate that up to 499 million people in Africa and India can benefit from improved agricultural water management.

In Asia, where irrigation has been greatly expanded in recent decades, rain-fed agriculture is still extensive, accounting for 66 percent of the total cropped area, the study notes, compared to 94 percent in sub-Saharan Africa.

“Just as modern consumers diversify their financial holdings to reduce risk, smallholder farmers need a wide array of ‘water accounts’ to provide a buffer against climate change impacts,” said Matthew McCartney, the report’s lead author and a hydrologist at IWMI.

“That way, if one water source goes dry, they’ll have others to fall back on.”

McCartney said that even small amounts of stored water, by enabling crops and livestock to survive dry periods, could produce large gains in agricultural productivity and in the well-being of rural people.

“Unless we can reduce crippling uncertainty in rain-fed agriculture through better water storage, many farmers in developing countries will face a losing battle with a more hostile and unpredictable climate,” he said.

Basah Hernowo, the director of forestry and water resources conservation at Indonesia’s National Development Planning Board, said the country was already employing “water harvesting management,” where farmers retain water from the rainy season to use during the dry season, particularly in West and East Nusa Tenggara.

“Farmers in West Java also collect the water in ponds, but because of modernization, most have now become housing estates,” Basah said, adding his office was focusing on rehabilitating 108 key water catchment areas, 13 of them considered “very critical,” including the Ciliwung, Bengawan Solo, Brantas and Cisadane rivers.

He also said his office was working with the Forestry Ministry to develop an integrated watershed management plan to involve all stakeholders from upstream to downstream.

“It’s not just about physical development, but also about raising people’s awareness,” he said.

“If people downstream lack water because it’s been channeled away for irrigation upstream, we need to consider incentives to get the upstream users to stop channeling away so much of the water.”

Source:thejakartaglobe.com