The global population is growing fast, and estimates show that with current practices, the world will face a 40% shortfall between forecast demand and available supply of water by 2030. Furthermore, chronic water scarcity, hydrological uncertainty, and extreme weather events (floods and droughts) are perceived as some of the biggest threats to global prosperity and stability. Acknowledgment of the role that water scarcity and drought are playing in aggravating fragility and conflict is increasing.
Feeding 9 billion people by 2050 will require a 60% increase in agricultural production, (which consumes 70% of the resource today), and a 15% increase in water withdrawals. Besides this increasing demand, the resource is already scarce in many parts of the world. Estimates indicate that 40% of the world population live in water scarce areas, and approximately ¼ of world’s GDP is exposed to this challenge. By 2025, about 1.8 billion people will be living in regions or countries with absolute water scarcity. Water security is a major – and often growing –challenge for many countries today.
Climate change will worsen the situation by altering hydrological cycles, making water more unpredictable and increasing the frequency and intensity of floods and droughts. The roughly 1 billion people living in monsoonal basins and the 500 million people living in deltas are especially vulnerable. Flood damages are estimated in $120 billion per year (only from property damage), and droughts pose, among others, constraints to the rural poor, highly dependent on rainfall variability for subsistence.
Water solutions for South Africa, Africa and the rest of the world.
The fragmentation of this resource also constrains water security. There are 276 transboundary basins, shared by 148 countries, which account for 60% of the global freshwater flow. Similarly, 300 aquifers systems are transboundary in nature, meaning 2 billion people worldwide are dependent on groundwater. The challenges of fragmentation are often replicated at the national scale, meaning cooperation is needed to achieve optimal water resources management and development solutions for all riparians. To deal with these complex and interlinked water challenges, countries will need to improve the way they manage their water resources and associated services.
To strengthen water security against this backdrop of increasing demand, water scarcity, growing uncertainty, greater extremes, and fragmentation challenges, clients will need to invest in institutional strengthening, information management, and (natural and man-made) infrastructure development. Institutional tools such as legal and regulatory frameworks, water pricing, and incentives are needed to better allocate, regulate, and conserve water resources. Information systems are needed for resource monitoring, decision making under uncertainty, systems analyses, and hydro-meteorological forecast and warning. Investments in innovative technologies for enhancing productivity, conserving and protecting resources, recycling storm water and wastewater, and developing non-conventional water sources should be explored in addition to seeking opportunities for enhanced water storage, including aquifer recharge and recovery. Ensuring the rapid dissemination and appropriate adaptation or application of these advances will be a key to strengthening global water security.
Water is a critical input for agricultural production and plays an important role in food security. Irrigated agriculture represents 20 percent of the total cultivated land and contributes 40 percent of the total food produced worldwide. Irrigated agriculture is, on average, at least twice as productive per unit of land as rainfed agriculture, thereby allowing for more production intensification and crop diversification.
Due to population growth, urbanization, and climate change, competition for water resources is expected to increase, with a particular impact on agriculture. Population is expected to increase to over 10 billion by 2050, and whether urban or rural, this population will need food and fiber to meet its basic needs. Combined with the increased consumption of calories and more complex foods, which accompanies income growth in the developing world, it is estimated that agricultural production will need to expand by approximately 70% by 2050.
However, future demand on water by all sectors will require as much as 25 to 40% of water to be re-allocated from lower to higher productivity and employment activities, particularly in water stressed regions. In most cases, such reallocation is expected to come from agriculture due to its high share of water use. Currently, agriculture accounts (on average) for 70 percent of all freshwater withdrawals globally (and an even higher share of “consumptive water use” due to the evapotranspiration of crops).
The movement of water will need to be both physical and virtual. Physical movement of water can occur through changes in initial allocations of surface and groundwater resources mainly from the agricultural to urban, environmental, and industrial users. Water can also move virtually as the production of water intensive food, goods, and services is concentrated in water abundant localities and is traded to water scarce localities.
Inter-sectoral water re-allocations and significant shifts of water away from agriculture will also need to be accompanied by improvements in water use efficiency and improvements in water delivery systems. Improving the efficiency of water use in agriculture will also depend on matching of improvements main system (off-farm) with appropriate incentives for on-farm investments aiming to improve soil and water management. Such options will require improved water delivery systems to provide adequate on-demand service as well as use of advanced technologies (i.e. soil moisture sensors and satellite evapotranspiration measurements) to improve efficiency and productivity of water in agriculture.
Resolving the challenges of the future requires a thorough reconsideration of how water is managed in the agricultural sector, and how it can be repositioned in the broader context of overall water resources management and water security. Moreover, irrigation and drainage schemes, whether large or small, represent prominent spatially dispersed public works in the rural spaces. Thereby, they represent a logical vehicle for mobilizing employment opportunities into communities.
Practical Challenges for Water in Agriculture
The ability to improve water management in agriculture is typically constrained by inadequate policies, major institutional under-performance, and financing limitations. Critical public and private institutions (encompassing agricultural and water ministries, basin authorities, irrigation agencies, water users’ and farmer organizations) generally lack the enabling environment and necessary capacities to effectively carry out their functions.
For example, basin authorities often hold limited ability to enforce water allocations and to convene stakeholders. Institutions charged with developing irrigation often limit themselves to capital-intensive larger scale schemes and tend to rely on public sector-based approaches rather than developing opportunities for small-scale private financing and irrigation management. Farmers and their organizations are also often responding to highly distorted incentive frameworks in terms of water pricing and agricultural support policies, which further hinder positive developments in the sector.
Moreover, most governments and water users fail to invest adequately in the maintenance of irrigation and drainage (I&D) systems. While inadequate management and operation may play a part in the poor performance of I&D systems, it is especially the failure to sufficiently maintain systems that results in their declining performance and the subsequent need for rehabilitation. This failure to provide adequate funds for maintenance of I&D systems has resulted in the “build-neglect-rehabilitate-neglect” cycle commonly observed in the sector.
Given the existing constraints above, the agricultural water management sector is currently in the process of repositioning itself towards modern and sustainable service provision. It proposes a singular water approach on building resilient water services and sustaining water resources, while also managing risks related to broader social and economic water-related impacts. This includes transforming governance and service provision as well as supporting watershed management and greening the sector and can be achieved by providing improved incentives for innovation, reforms, and accountability.
