The document discusses how better water management can help mitigate and adapt to climate change impacts. It outlines how climate change will increase droughts and floods, reducing agricultural yields. Improved water management through practices like irrigation, storage infrastructure, and basin allocation can boost productivity and buffer communities from income fluctuations. The document also notes that water management must be considered at the basin scale to account for climate change scenarios and trans-boundary agreements. Research is still needed to understand impacts at local scales and identify most effective adaptation strategies.

1. CLIMATE CHANGE AND WATER:
MITIGATION AND ADAPTATION
THROUGH BETTER WATER MANAGEMENT

2. CONTENT
1. Climate change and agricultural water linkages
2. Mitigation through better water management
3. Adaptation through better water management
4. Towards new research agenda on water and climate
change

3. WATER SCARCITY 2000
1/3 of the world’s population live in basins that have to deal with water scarcity

5. 1. Climate change and water
Climate change IMPACTS ON RAINFED
AGRICULTURE
• Climate variability will
increase: more frequent and
severe floods and droughts
• Droughts may decrease yields
• Floods may damage crops
and infrastructure
• Fluctuations in farmers’
income: poor farmers may
lack means to buffer extreme
years

6. 1. Climate change and water
Climate change IMPACTS ON IRRIGATED
AGRICULTURE
• Reduced glacier melt in spring (affecting some 17
% of the world’s population, irrigation in Indus,
etc)
• Changes in groundwater recharge (affecting
irrigation in India, China, US, Mexico)
• Changes in timing and magnitude of river flows
(affecting irrigation schemes tapping directly from
river, and storage requirements)
• Temperature effects on water productivity
unknown

7. 1. Climate change and water linkages
CC IMPACTS ON ECOSYSTEMS
• Changes in wetlands affecting rural livelihoods
directly through reduction in recession agriculture,
loss of ecosystem services (flood alleviation, low
flow maintenance, groundwater recharge)
• Second order impacts – on water quality and water
temperature, affecting fisheries

8. 2. Mitigation through better water management
GHG REDUCTION THROUGH WATER MANAGEMENT
• Agriculture and land-use change contribute over 30% of
GHG emissions
• Major part of it is deforestation and wetland development /
degradation - can contribute CO2 and Methane
• Drainage of wet peatlands for agriculture releases carbon
(some 30% of global soil carbon in peatlands)
• Improved tillage practices can sequester carbon
• Cleaning reservoir inundated land from forest can reduce
methane emissions
• Higher productivity means less crop land globally and hence
less deforestation – less emissions

9. 2. Mitigation through better water management
WATER IMPLICATIONS OF CLIMATE
CHANGE MITIGATION
• Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of KP:
afforestation in developing countries to sequester
Carbon – direct impacts on hydrology
• Biofuels (as a source of clean energy) take 2000-
3500 liters in crop water evaporation. Impacts on
hydrology and on food crops

10. 3. Adaptation through better water management
RETHINKING STORAGE
• Renewed interest in storage infrastructure
for irrigation particularly in sub-Saharan
Africa
• Explore wide range of options: large scale
reservoirs, small village ponds,
groundwater, water harvesting (i.e. soil
moisture storage), virtual storage (food)
• Diversity of storage options within a basin
• Storage creation processes determine
who benefits

11. 3. Adaptation through better water management
INVESTING IN IRRIGATION
2.5 320
World Bank lending for
irrigation 280
2.0
Irrigated Area
240
200
1.5
160
1.0
Food price index 120
Living Planet Index
Freshwater Species
80
0.5
40
0 0
1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
How to avoid?

12. 3. Adaptation through better water management
INCREASING LAND AND WATER PRODUCTIVITY
• Higher productivity means better income, better buffer
against income fluctuations due to climate variability
• Water often is a constraint in productivity
• Integration of livestock and fisheries to derive more value
per unit of water

13. 3. Adaptation through better water management
BASIN WATER ALLOCATION
• Focus on the basin scale, not coarse
global projections
• Large scale infrastructure and basin
water transfer should consider
climate change scenarios
• Trans-boundary agreements (most
African rivers cross more than one
country)
• Learn from climate extremes already
occurring (Gediz in Turkey, recent
floods in Ghana etc.)

14. 3. Adaptation through better water management
EARLY WARNING AND INSURANCE
• Regional but locally focused
drought monitoring systems
using hydrological-climate
indicators and remote sensing
techniques
• Developing of drought
preparedness plans
• Climate risk assessment and
climate insurance schemes

15. 4. Towards new research agenda on water and CC
IWMI’S NICHE
Global Basin water Agricultural Adaptive water
GCM impacts impacts management
IWMI’s niche

16. 4. Towards new research agenda on water and CC
NEW RESEARCH QUESTIONS
• What are the impacts of climate change on water at river
basin and farm scale?
• What are water implications of climate mitigation
measures?
• What are the most promising measures in water
management to minimize small farmers’ vulnerability to
climate change ?
– Implications for environment
– Enabling institutional environment
• What water related investments are needed? By whom,
where?

17. THANK YOU