Smart Infrastructure to Enhance Food Security
and Climate Resilience
What infrastructures do you see?
What infrastructures do you see?
SeawallFlood & Drought
Control
Water Reservoir &
Purification SystemLiving Shoreline /
Coastal Protection
“Living Landscapes and Shorelines”
- flood/drought control
- water storage
- water purification
- coastal protection
- multiple benefits, food security
- biodiversity
- productive fisheries
Use Natural Infrastructure/Assets as Building Blocks
Key Points
• Scale Matters! Plan at basin and landscape scale
• Integrate natural and human-built infrastructure
• Increase water efficiency!– Agriculture now uses 80-90% of water!
– Increase efficiency of existing systems first
– Reoperationalize dams and irrigation systems
– Expand use of “green water”/rain-fed agriculture
• Enhance resilience and food security by maintaining
environmental flows, goods and service– Restore and enhance natural productivity
– Integrate water and fisheries into food security programs
Case Study: Impacts of Dams in Nigeria
on Basin-wide Food Production
Irrigation dams decreased total food production in basin by half
Shifted benefits from downstream to upstream users
Re-optimize dam operations: water volume, timing, pulses
Nigeria Case Study: How to restore basin productivity?
• Reoptimize dam management for multiple purposes and restore
downstream flows and natural productivity
• Utilizing floodplain storage in conjunction with reservoirs to
reduce flood risks and restore aquatic habitats
• During rainy season, “capture” part of flow to recharge aquifer
for irrigation during dry season
• Allow rivers to function as dynamic biohydrologic systems rather
than as water delivery channels
• Increase water efficiency of irrigation systems
• Promote integrated water resources management in basin and
establish institutional framework
Challenge: Water for Food Security
Up to 90% is now used for agriculture! Where will more water come from?
Improve efficiency, watershed management, landscape planning
Challenge: Smart Water & Land Management to
Enhance Fisheries Productivity for Food Security
2.6 billion people depend on wild fish for protein, micronutrients, essential fatty acids
Poor water and land use practices create “dead zones” and reduce fisheries productivity
Challenge: Climate Change will increase droughts & floods
Change in water availability by 2050
Bay / Estuary
/ Ocean
Coastal /
Marine
Freshwater
A Connected System
Smart infrastructure & integrated systems approaches to
maintain environmental goods, services and productivity
Tools for Program Design?
Strive for Large-scale, Integrated and Long-term
• Strategic Environmental Assessments
• Water Accounting: Supply and Demand Analysis
• Cost/Benefit Analysis
• Social Soundness Analysis
• Managing Freshwater Inflows: Methods Guide
• Adapting to Climate Variability and Change: Guide
• Geospatial and Governance Planning Tools
• Scarcity: What is it ?
• Storage: Why and which ?
• Basin-wide approaches and Institutions: Why ?
Key Points
Water Scarcity
RWR/population
Open v. Closed Basins
<.3
.3-.4
.9-1
>1
No data
WSI = Withdrawal/(RWR-EFR)
Storage and Development ?
Storage and Development ?
Deal with negative impacts of water development
Ecosystem degradation
Negative health impacts
Inequitable benefits
Loss of biodiversity
Manage Externalities
Climate Change Impacts
Climate Variability and Climate Change
Adaptation Approaches
Basin management = transboundary management
Basin-level transboundary
coordination ….
• can help avert tragedy of
commons
• can improve water productivity
• Equitable benefit sharing,
sustainable solutions
….lead to other cooperation
Take-aways
• Design at watershed/basin and landscape scale
• Integrate natural and human-built infrastructure
• Consider different types of storage/infrastructure
• Increase water efficiency
• Increase resilience to climate impacts by
integrating water storage and management
• Maintain ecosystem goods, services and
productivity/fisheries for food security