IWMI Research Middle East and North Africa
Groundwater
Revitalizing canal irrigation
Sustainability of the Nile Delta and its water and salt balances
Reusing saline water and restoring salt-affected land
Treated wastewater for irrigation
Landscapes and climate change
IntroductionAgriculture in the Middle East (West Asia) and North Africa (MENA) is dominated by both traditional irrigation systems (based on springs and river diversions or qanats) and large-scale public irrigation systems, which serve family farms and larger commercial plots. There is a growing trend towards individual deep wells that have both complemented supply in the public sector and allowed the expansion of private irrigation.
Despite this, many countries in the region import large quantities of food; in some cases, as much as 50% of the total consumed. This makes food prices highly vulnerable to global trade fluctuations. Some commentators have linked the political unrest of the “Arab Spring” to discontent over high food prices in early 2011, which exacerbated other long-standing grievances.
High rates of population growth combined with severely constrained water and land resources suggest that this dependence on imports will increase or remain at current levels for the foreseeable future.
Water security largely depends on how agriculture uses water. More water-efficient agricultural practices can sometimes save water that can be used elsewhere, but better management is not limited to farm practices. It also involves water management at the system or basin scale, including institutional dimensions and relationships between managers and users at different levels. Climate change, bringing an expected 20% reduction in rainfall, makes agricultural water-use efficiency even more critical.
Research carried out by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) seeks to strengthen farmer control over water
resources (irrigation management transfer) and develop new participatory governance approaches.
GroundwaterWater scarcity and unequal distribution in space and time are major problems in the region. With most available surface water resources already diverted or polluted, groundwater development emerged as a complementary source wherever physical conditions allowed for it. For example, in many parts of MENA, farmers living along the margins of surface irrigation areas have been able to expand production by tapping into aquifers. Groundwater contributes more than 50% of the total water withdrawals in countries such as Bahrain, Jordan, Oman and Yemen.
However, groundwater resources are now being heavily overexploited by individual farmers and commercial entities who have developed irrigated agriculture in formerly dry or desert areas.
Solutions: IWMI seeks to systematically address the challenges posed by the unsustainable use of groundwater in the MENA region. Current research emphasizes the need to take stock of past experiences in groundwater governance at the local, regional and global level. Researchers are reviewing the policies, community-based actions and institutional structures, as well as their effectiveness in controlling access, abstraction and allocation of the resource under varying circumstances.
IWMI aims to contribute to groundwater governance and policy solutions by improving awareness, knowledge and capacity of both national-level decision makers and local stakeholders. The Groundwater governance in the Arab world: Taking stock and addressing the challenges project will launch a participatory process near three aquifers, in order to define problems and implement action plans to improve groundwater management and governance at the local and aquifer levels.
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Revitalizing canal irrigationIn Egypt’s Nile Delta, farmers typically irrigate their crops using individual pumps from tertiary canals, drains and the aquifer. This results in the use of saline or polluted water and weakens control over water use.
In the past 30 years, irrigation improvement projects (implemented by the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation) aimed to replace diffuse pumping with collective pump stations, which source water directly from secondary canals and distribute it through a piped system. On-farm improvement projects have also been attempted, extending the distribution network by placing hydrants at the farm or plot level.
These investments have faced many difficulties, such as inefficient contractors, stolen pumps, unequal pressure in the network, power cuts and lack of spare parts for maintenance. Conflict and water unavailability in the canal compared with design assumptions have also been challenges.
New knowledge on the dynamics of projects on the ground is needed to improve planning and implementation, and maximize the efficiency of these investments.
Solutions: IWMI is conducting in-depth research to better understand why new technology was well accepted in some areas, but not in others. It also seeks to establish under what circumstances it is more likely to be used sustainably and profitably.
These investigations have explored how farmers act collectively around the pump stations, and identified the gap between the formal institutions put in place and actual practices on the ground. Documenting how these technical innovations have been
adopted, modified or rejected, sheds light on how to better tailor the investment to suit farmers’ needs, making projects more demand-driven.
Sustainability of the Nile Delta and its water and salt balancesThe High Aswan Dam controls water flow to the lower reaches of the Nile. Completed in 1970, the dam generates hydropower and limits the annual flooding of the river. It operates on a fairly fixed annual regime, and it is unlikely that the amount of water released will change much in the foreseeable future. The water available to downstream farmers, however, may be affected by climate change. This will bring new challenges for the management of the quantity and quality of water in the Delta. Careful adjustment of water regimes is needed to maximize water productivity, limit loss to the sea and ensure environmental sustainability within agricultural areas, as well as in aquaculture and coastal lagoons.
The way in which water is distributed throughout the system and whether farmers source their water from the canal or the drains, affects the sustainability of production at the plot level. It also dictates the amount of water that needs to be flushed to the sea and affects the quality of the water used in fish production.
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IWMI research: Local solutions to regional challenges
IWMI office
“The question of water-use efficiency in the delta is very complex, and there is no clear and definite answer to how and how much water could be ‘saved’; revisiting the water balance in the delta is key to understanding Egypt’s water future.”François Molle, Principal Researcher, Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), France, currently holding a joint appointment with IWMI, Cairo, Egypt
“Farmers always innovate in finding ways to irrigate their lands from canals, groundwater and drains; the question that research seeks to answer is how to ensure the sustainability of their irrigation systems, and find the opportunities for developing and improving these systems.”Doaa El-Agha, Irrigation System Management Specialist, IWMI, Cairo, Egypt
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“Conducting in-depth research to better understand why new technologies and institutional forms work under certain conditions but not in others, helps to develop a more flexible and context-specific approach to revitalize canal irrigation.”Edwin Rap, Researcher – Water Management and Institutions, IWMI, Cairo, Egypt
“The work IWMI is doing on groundwater governance in the region will help us understand the drivers of groundwater over-abstraction, and put in place appropriate regulatory measures and policies to help users and decision makers tackle the challenges associated with the sustainable preservation of this resource in the future.”
Alvar Closas, Researcher - Groundwater Management and Policy, IWMI, Cairo, Egypt
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Saline water and salt-affected lands are generally considered constraints to agricultural productivity. Soil salinity often occurs in arid and semiarid areas where rainfall is too low to maintain percolation of rainwater through the soil, and where irrigation is practiced without natural or artificial drainage systems. This can trigger the accumulation of salt in the soil, which can cripple yields and, in extreme circumstances, result in the complete abandonment of the land.
Solutions: IWMI and its partner, the Water Management Research Institute in Egypt, study the spatial and temporal variability of salinity in farm plots and the subsurface drainage system in the central part of the Nile Delta. Researchers also attempt to better quantify the uses of groundwater and drainage water, and their impact on the salt balance. By examining the interactions between agriculture and aquaculture, the team aims to better understand how much water is really transferred to the lagoons and the sea. This allows for a better estimate of the salt and water balances of the Nile Delta.
Insights from this work will reveal how much water could be used more efficiently, and is likely to be of paramount importance to the expansion of agriculture and aquaculture in Egypt.
Reusing saline water and restoring salt-affected landTreating and reusing saline water and bringing salt-affected irrigated areas back into use could significantly contribute to sustainable food production. Desalination systems are increasingly used to
supplement water supply in arid and semiarid areas worldwide, but the safe disposal of the brine produced during this process remains a key environmental challenge. The conventional disposal systems are also expensive and unproductive.
Solutions: IWMI is running a pilot-scale Integrated Aqua-Agriculture System (IAAS), which uses desalinated and brine water from a reverse osmosis (RO) unit. The agronomic performance, costs and the possible revenues that could be gained from the freshwater and brine-fed IAAS will be reviewed to analyze the potential for replication and scaling out.
During this project, scientists plan to demonstrate on-farm management of available water resources for growing aquatic species and crops. They will also make a financial analysis of brine-fed land-based IAAS, and disseminate the results and knowledge to farmers and other stakeholders.
Strategic investments in salt-affected irrigated zones can make a significant contribution to poverty reduction and development. There is a need for a paradigm shift with regard to saline waters through ‘reuse’ rather than ‘disposal’, and salt-affected soils through ‘restoration’ instead of ‘retirement’. This also supports additional gains in the form of mitigating climate change impacts through enhancing soil carbon sequestration.
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Treated wastewater for irrigation The increasing scarcity of water, energy and fertilizers is driving millions of farmers and other entrepreneurs to make use of wastewater. It is estimated that 80-90% of the wastewater in developing countries remains untreated, some of which is used directly, indirectly or unintentionally, which poses great health and environmental risks. Although the international community recognizes that the safe use of wastewater is an important issue, particularly for agriculture, many countries struggle with regulating the use of wastewater.
Solutions: To maximize opportunities and minimize risks related to the use of wastewater in agriculture, robust policies and institutions need to be designed. Responsibilities and jurisdictions among public institutions (health, agriculture and water) have to be clear and coordinated. In countries where wastewater treatment is limited, investments in treatment facilities need to keep pace with increases in population and the consequent rise in the volume of wastewater.
In the MENA region, IWMI and its partners will investigate the health and environmental risks in areas irrigated with untreated or partially treated wastewater, and the status of implementation of the World Health Organization (WHO) and/or national guidelines for risk management. They will identify the knowledge gaps for a range of stakeholders on risk assessment, risk management and resource recovery from wastewater. The last stage will include a synthesis of resource and cost recovery mechanisms in wastewater management through cost-effective and safe reuse practices.
Landscapes and climate changeWater scarcity is common in many areas of the MENA region. In the Oum zessar watershed of Tunisia, domestic water users, agriculture, tourism and industry rely heavily on groundwater. Two main aquifers supply this water with varying quality and quantity. Desalinization units could reduce pressure, but with a predicted reduction in rainfall (4-8%) and development plans which could triple total water demands, this fragile watershed could be pushed beyond sustainable use.
Solutions: IWMI researchers used a new approach for modeling at the regional scale to evaluate the effects of climate change and development. The Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) system is a user-friendly software tool that takes an integrated approach to water resource planning, making use of supply, demand and quality of water, along with ecological considerations. By creating different scenarios, the researchers can help water planners and decision makers choose the most sustainable water policies and initiatives.
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Contact usIWMI HeadquartersColombo, Sri LankaTel: +94 11 2880000, 2784080Email: [email protected]
Regional Office for AfricaAccra, GhanaTel: +233 302 784753/4 or +233 289 109561Email: [email protected]
Middle East and North Africa OfficeCairo, EgyptTel: (+202) 35724358Email: [email protected]
Find out more:www.iwmi.orgFor project details, databases, publications and communication materials.
Front cover photo: Hamish John Appleby/IWMI
Printed: February 2015
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