The present water report is the final product emanating from efforts by FAO, IWMI and others to document and understand the implications of the irrigation sector embarking on a wide reform process. It is intended to be a knowledge synthesis document that captures the global experiences emerging from a wide-reaching process targeting the reform of the irrigation sector. This study indicates that IMT is an approach for irrigation sector reform with the potential to improve the sust ainability of irrigation systems.

The need to increase water productivity is a growing global concern as the World Commission on Water has estimated that demand for water will increase by c. 50% over the next 30 years and approximately half of the world's population will experience conditions of severe water stress by 2025. Three-quarters of African countries are expected to experience unstable water supplies, whereby small decreases in rainfall induce much larger reductions in streamflow.

The increasing importance of sustainability in natural resource management is drawing increasing attention, worldwide, to the role that policies can play in enhancing the management and allocative efficiency of water. Looking at various examples from the literature, we discuss some best practices that have been applied in a variety of empirical settings, while highlighting some of the pitfalls to avoid. We discuss the role that assigning water rights can play in creating the necessary incentives for market-based mechanisms of re-allocation to work for water management.

Salinization of soils is a major impediment to their optimal utilization in many arid and semi-arid regions throughout the world. In several large irrigation schemes, salinity-induced land degradation has increased steadily over the last few decades with concurrent reductions in agricultural productivity and sustainability. Currently, saline soils occur within at least 100 countries. These soils need explicit approaches in their amelioration since soil salinization cannot be reduced by routine irrigation and crop management practices.

There are many options for enhancing food production from fish in managed aquatic systems.The most appropriate technology, however, will vary from place to place, and the conditions under which one technology is prefered over another are still not well defined.

The people of the Sahel — that huge region stretching along the southern edge of the Sahara Desert — are still striving to recover from the fallout of the terrible droughts that have afflicted the area since 1973. Drought has shattered the momentum of socioeconomic development in Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal. According to researchers with Burkino Faso’s Institut de l’environnement et de recherches agricoles, “Rural men and women are now struggling to survive in a land that is exhausted, denuded, desiccated, and swept away by the wind and water.”

The people of the Sahel — that huge region stretching along the southern edge of the Sahara Desert — are still striving to recover from the fallout of the terrible droughts that have afflicted the area since 1973. Drought has shattered the momentum of socioeconomic development in Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal. According to researchers with Burkino Faso’s Institut de l’environnement et de recherches agricoles, “Rural men and women are now struggling to survive in a land that is exhausted, denuded, desiccated, and swept away by the wind and water.”

IPCC (2001) indicates that climate change will take place despite the mitigation strategies that are going to be implemented. This calls for adaptation strategies in order to reduce the vulnerability to climate change. The aim of this project was to make a policy assessment to contribute to a more thorough understanding of the adaptation options, their costs and benefits and the policy conclusions that could be attached to the results.

This volume is an analytical summary and a critical synthesis of research at the International Water Management Institute over the past decade under its evolving research paradigm known popularly as 'more crop per drop'.

This paper is based on the outcomes of a training workshop on modernization of irrigation management organized in 2007 for 25 participants with a focus on the Gandorinala and Bennithora projects.

This first edition of ROA Policy Brief is designed to clarify the roles of economic valuation of the external impacts from agriculture in policy-making, by resolving misunderstanding and confusion pertaining to existing valuation studies.