This article questions the effectiveness and viability of rural Tax-for-Fee reform (Fei Gai Shui) on water resources and agriculture production, taking the Zhanghe Irrigation System of China as a case study example. The Fei Gai Shui reform has been heralded as a possible solution for reducing...

Efficient use of water and energy resources are significant requirements for increasing irrigated rice productivity. However, the ever increasingly complex interplay between energy, water and agriculture in feeding both machinery and people, respectively, plus the added impact on and of climate...

The study documents comprehensive analysis on informal groundwater marketing in upland Balochistan, Pakistan. Informal groundwater markets are emerging as a feasible option to manage increasing water scarcity and declining water tables resulting from poor groundwater policies. Firstly, we...

Alternate wetting and drying (AWD) has been attracting increasing interest, because it seems to reach several useful objectives: using less water to achieve the same result; thus increasing water productivity and profitability. It is the most widely adopted water-saving irrigation practice in...

Enhancing water productivity is often recommended as a "soft option" in addressing the problem of increasing water scarcity. However, improving water productivity, particularly through water reuse, incurs additional investment and may result in increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this...

Rice is the major staple food in most Asian countries. However, with rapidly growing populations, sustained high productivity and yields through improving water productivity is critically important. Increasingly complex energy-agriculture relationships require an in-depth understanding of water...

Most government policies and community perception of the irrigation sector promotes the conversion from gravity-fed to pressurised irrigation methods as a way of reducing water consumption by the irrigation sector. However, optimising for one aspect of a system can have unintended resource and...