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Sustainable Management of Rainwater through Integrated Watershed Approach for Improved Rural Livelihoods

OAR@ICRISAT

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/5355/
 
Title Sustainable Management of Rainwater through Integrated Watershed Approach for Improved Rural Livelihoods
 
Creator Wani, S P
Ramakrishna, Y S
 
Subject Watershed management
 
Description Rainwater, an essential resource for growing food also plays an important role in
providing livelihood support for rural people in the rain-fed regions. Eighty percent of the
world’s agricultural land is rain-fed and contributes to about 60 percent of the global food
production. An insight into the rain-fed regions shows a grim picture of water-scarcity,
fragile ecosystems and land degradation due to soil erosion by wind and water, low
rainwater use efficiency, high population pressure, poverty, low investments in water use
efficiency measures, poor infrastructure and inappropriate policies. The current rainwater
use efficiency for crop production is low ranging between 30 and 45 %; thus annually about
300-800 mm of seasonal rainfall goes unproductive, lost either as surface run-off or deep
drainage. The challenge, therefore, is to improve rural livelihoods through efficient and
sustainable rainwater management technologies for increasing rain-fed productivity and
thereby contribute to food and livelihood security. Watershed as an entry point acts as a
beginning to address the issues of sustainable rainwater management for improving
livelihoods. An innovative integrated farmer participatory consortium watershed management
model developed by ICRISAT along with NARS partners is a holistic model unlike the
earlier watershed approaches which were sectoral with emphasis only on the soil and water
conservation measures. The integrated watershed approach uses new science tools, links onstation
research to on-farm watersheds, provides technical backstopping through consortium
of institutions with convergence of livelihood-based activities. The core theme of the model
is sustainable natural resource management for increasing the farm productivity and
improving the rural livelihoods. The approach covers issues starting with conservation of
natural resources and ensures increased productivity and incomes through convergence of
all necessary activities to achieve the good. In order to ensure equity for women and
landless people, emphasis is put on development of common property resources as well as
establishing micro-enterprises. This integrated watershed approach enables to have ‘winwin’
situations for sustaining productivity and improving livelihoods as it includes
convergence of activities at various levels thus enhancing community participation and
creating income-generating options. Successful results from on-farm integrated watersheds
are discussed. However, the challenge is to scale up the approach to larger areas on
sustainable basis. Lessons learnt from past watershed experiences are that we need to focus on issues such as keeping the community interest for participation; institutions to continue
activity for maintenance after the project activity ceases; maintaining the link between the
watershed and supporting institutions for technical backstopping, appropriate policies for
groundwater use and common property resources and innovative ways to merge common
wastelands. Thus the lessons learnt from the integrated watershed management can help reengineer
suitable roadmaps for maximizing returns to investment on watershed programs.
With ever changing policies and economies, improved institutional and policy support
mechanisms in partnership with stakeholders especially the farmers, market links for
products, value addition products for rural areas, infrastructure and suitable ways to meet
the challenges for the target areas need to be addressed
 
Publisher International Water Management Institute
 
Contributor Sharma, B R
Samra, J S
Scott, C A
Wani, S P
 
Date 2005
 
Type Book Section
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Rights —
 
Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/5355/1/Sustainable%20Management_39-60_2005.pdf
Wani, S P and Ramakrishna, Y S (2005) Sustainable Management of Rainwater through Integrated Watershed Approach for Improved Rural Livelihoods. In: Watershed Management Challenges: Improving Productivity, Resources and Livelihoods. International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka, pp. 39-60. ISBN 92-9090-611 1