Water is critically important to the livelihoods of more than 1 billion people living on less than $1 a day, particularly for the 850 million rural poor primarily engaged in agriculture. In many developing countries, water is a major factor constraining agricultural output, and income of the...

In its broadest sense, water productivity (WP) is the net return for a unit of water used. Improvement of water productivity aims at producing more food, income, better livelihoods and ecosystem services with less water. There is considerable scope for improving water productivity of crop,...

Investments in agricultural water management should complement or strengthen the livelihood and coping systems of the rural poor, and should thus be instrumental for breaking the poverty trap in Ethiopia. Underdeveloped water resources constrain progress towards poverty reduction. We examine...

Water resources are essential to human development processes and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals that seek, inter alia, to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal literacy, and ensure environmental sustainability. Expanding irrigation is essential to increase...

Australia is a major food exporting country. Recent droughts reduced dryland farming production and the volume of water allocated to irrigated agriculture, with a resulting decline in aggregate agricultural production and exports. This paper analyses the possible impact of increased water...

The links between water application, energy consumption and emissions are complex in irrigated agriculture. There is a need to ensure that water and energy use is closely considered in future industry planning and development to provide practical options for adaptation and to build resilience at...