As part of the seminar held by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in collaboration with IWMI, World fish and ICARDA “Options for improving irrigation water efficiency for sustainable agricultural development”.

1. International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas
icarda.org cgiar.org
A CGIAR Research Center
“Improving biophysical and socio-economic water productivity
with cropping systems management and diversification”
Jacques Wery
In collaboration with Theib Oweis, Atef Swelam, Vinay Nangia
October 2, 2019
Cairo

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Water Productivity (WP): a framework of Indicators
Consumed (depleted)
• Evaporation
• Transpiration
• Quality deterioration
What water?
• Quality (EC)
• Location (GW depth)
• Time available
What return?
• Biomass, grain, fruit, meat,
milk, fish (kg)
• Income ($)
• Social benefits (employment)
• Nutrition (call., protein,
carbohydrates, fat)
• Environmental benefits (C)
WP =
𝑹𝒆𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏
𝑼𝒏𝒊𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝑾𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒖𝒎𝒆𝒅
Data Quality?
• Measurement (ET)
• Modeling
• Remote Sensing

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Act on Return, on Water or on both?
Mechanized Raised-Bed Planting Wheat
22 governorates 10% of Egypt’s total
wheat area (125,000 ha)
• Less irrigation water (- 25%)
• More yields (+30%)
• Less seeds (-50%)
Ethiopia, Jordan,
Iraq, Morocco,
Nigeria, Sudan,
Tunisia and
Uzbekistan
Similar Systems and Contexts

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Crops and Management have a strong influence on Water
Productivity
Economic Wp $/m3
0.1 0.1 0.1
0.3
1
0.8
0.3 0.3
0.6 0.7
3
1.6
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
Beef Lentil Wheat Potato Olive Dates
Keep the precious
irrigation water in the dry
areas
for fruits and vegetables?
Poor
management
Improved
management

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Explore Trade-Offs between the various dimensions of Water
Productivity
Nutritional WP Protein gr/m3
10
90
50 50
10 8
30
150 150
120
30
16
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
Beef Lentil Wheat Potato Olive Dates
Poor
management
Improved
management
Economic Wp $/m3
0.1 0.1 0.1
0.3
1
0.8
0.3 0.3
0.6 0.7
3
1.6
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
Beef Lentil Wheat Potato Olive Dates

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Co-design of Water Productive and Nutrition Sensitive Farming
Systems
also in soil: sub-
surface irrigation Same biomass (with the right variety)
Less water used (up to 30%)
Produce electricity
(Marrou et al. 2013. European Journal of Agronomy)
Integrate Crops, Vegetables, Forages/livestocks
and Fruit Trees….and more
in Multilayer Systems

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• Estimation of present physical and economic WP of
progressive and traditional farmers
• Testing and quantifying the increases in land and water
productivity through adoption of recommended packages
developed using crop modeling approaches
• Improved human capacity of local researchers and
technicians
Integrated projects on water and livelihoods at community level
The case of irrigated farming communities in Rajasthan (India)
Crop Farmer
N
Farmer
Irrigation
Farmer
Yield
Farmer
WP
Recomm
ended N
Recomm
ended
Irrigation
WP % WP
increase
Cluster
bean
20 200 1700 0.47 60 100 1.27 290
Mustard 60 350 1800 0.51 100 250 1.03 102
Wheat 100 550 1600 0.29 160 400 0.58 100
Groundnut 40 550 400 0.07 60 400 0.15 114

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Informing policies on trends, options and trade-offs
“The analysis shows that achieving high AWP in all the region would either increase crop production by
8 million tons or save 8.1 BCM of water annually maintaining current production levels”
Untapped potential of water savings and food security in the Euphrates-Tigress river basin through improved
agricultural water productivity (Oweis et al., submitted)
Hot spots of high and low water productivity in the irrigated areas for year 2002, 2006 and 2008
Euphrates- Tigress basin (project funded by SIDA)

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• The multidimensional nature of Water
Productivity
• Explore trade-offs and synergies (among WPs
and with P)
• At different scales (field, farm, watershed,
country)
• Quality of data  more measurements of WP
• Opportunities to increase WP at farm and
community levels
• Sustainability of irrigated agriculture should be
grounded in diversity
Conclusion