2014 went on record as the hottest year ever measured, a telling sign that climate change is already here. The agriculture sector is predicted to take the heaviest toll, with the hardest hit being smallholder farmers in developing countries, particularly in dry areas. With rising temperatures and greater stress on water resources, agricultural productivity is set to experience a substantial decline. Yet against these odds, we need to produce progressively more to feed a rapidly growing world population.

In 2004, ICARDA began strategic visioning, driven by the global focus on achieving the Millennium Development Goals and the realignment of the CGIAR System priorities by the Science Council. It involved, among other actions, a consolidation of the 19 research projects into six mega-projects for better integration of the Center’s multidisciplinary teams, and an increased use of new tools of science in addressing the problems of poverty and degradation of natural resources.

ICARDA witnessed several important developments in 2006. Of these, the Fifth External Program and Management Review (EPMR) was the most significant, as it provided a comprehensive assessment of the Center's global activities, as well as new insights and dimensions that helped refine ICARDA's new Strategic Plan for 2007- 2016. The EPMR coincided with a transition in the governance and leadership of ICARDA.

This study aimed at conducting the followings activities:
• To survey and identify the flora at the Mharib watershed (the intervention area of the Badia Benchmark Project),
• to study the effect of microcatchment WH techniques on the soil seed bank compared with the current situation,
• to evaluate the effect of microcatchment WH on the native vegetation regeneration and improvement, and
• to multiply and reintroduce the annual native plant species collected from the rangelands.
The study is presented in five main sections:

This report will focus on results of 2004/05 and 2005/06 seasons in which the conventional handmade microcatchment was compared to the mechanized one through research done at the Jordan University of Science and Technology site.

In this study, an economic evaluation of water-use efficiency technologies proposed and tested by the agronomic team in the Tadla Irrigated Perimeter was carried out. To capture climatic variability, the analysis was conducted during two contrasting years (dry and wet). Total annual rainfall was 357 mm in 2005/06 (wet year) and 296 mm in 2006/07 (dry year). During the first year, precipitation was well distributed throughout the season. However, the second year was wet at the beginning, dry in the middle and very wet at the end of the season.

The Jordan Badia is representative of the vast drier environments of the West Asia and North Africa (WANA) region. Pasture rangeland covers the majority of the Badia, although the vegetative cover is not dense. The vegetation in the Badia includes shrubs and short grasses. Barley is the main field crop in dryland farming, although irrigated forage, vegetables, and fruit orchards are also found in the Badia. Most of Jordan’s livestock (70%) is produced in the Badia.

The new lands are represented by the El- Bustan area. The soils of the site are mostly sandy with low fertility and relatively low water holding capacity and crops are grown exclusively under irrigation using modern irrigation systems.

The study was conducted in El-Serw (New Alexandria) located about 32 km south of Damietta, Damietta Governorate, El-Manzala Lake is to the east, Dakahlia Governorate lies to the south, and to the west are El-Sharqawia canal and the Nile River.
The selected site has the general characteristics of marginal lands:
• Drainage system problems;
• High water table;
• Increased soil salinity;
• Seawater intrusion;
• Pollution due to extensive use of chemicals; low water quality;
• Available water increases relatively in winter;

Wheat is the main cultivated crop in the LKRB (mainly the Dashte- Azadegan plain). Its average yield is 1500 kg/ha (Agricultural Statistics 2004). Irrigation management practices are traditional and the region suffers from poor water management, which is partly due to lack of modern irrigation infrastructure and improved on-farm activities. Therefore, sound and adoptive solutions are necessary to ameliorate this condition.

In relevance to the project objectives and expected outputs, the reported research aimed at introducing a mechanized transplanting technique to the WH system to reduce costs and time of establishment of fodder shrubs, thus improving overall system capacity and making large-scale implementation more feasible. Therefore, the expected output is to improve WH and re-vegetation techniques with less cost and time of establishment for fodder shrubs.

This report describes the use of improved methodologies developed to identify suitable watersheds based on an integrated resources management concept. The approach integrates multi-disciplinary knowledge, GIS utilities, and verification in the field to develop and test a methodology to identify watersheds with specific characteristics
– in this case, the watersheds most suited to the project activities.