Although the total number of water-insecure countries in Asia has reduced from 38 to 29 in the last five years, water demand is going to increase by 100 percent by 2050. A new report from the Asian Development Bank, presented this week in Stockholm, outlines the implications.
Abating the huge urban and industrial pollution loads that the Ganga receives each day will require strong political will and billions of dollars. But will this be enough?
Last year, India’s Ministry of Water Resources, launched a new program called Jal Kranti Abhiyan to improve water access to villages across India, their main objective being to strengthen grassroots involvement and promote at the village-level, the adoption of both traditional and modern practices for water resource conservation.
Gender equality is very important, but actually achieving it can be quite complicated. A look at women's empowerment can help us understand the why and put us on the right track to achieving a meaningful '50-50' for International Woman's Day.
In Uttarakhand, as many as 450 new hydropower facilities are being developed rapidly and haphazardly. Installation of hydropower facilities presents a complex combination of benefits and risks for local residents. While providing local electricity, flood control and water storage for climate mitigation, there are also negative impacts.
In October, by good fortune, two WLE projects met in the polders of Bangladesh. Improved water management in the polders goes hand in hand with a higher value cropping system, observes van Steenbergen and Mondal.
People should be allowed and even, in some circumstances, encouraged to move for work. But the current structure of migration, particularly in the Ganges plains, contributes to the reproduction of rural poverty.
I remember the cyclone in 1970s, this was before the polders were built. Thousands died in that storm. I am 100% sure that polders would have saved them.
Community-Based Natural Resources Management has been applied widely, from the forests of Malawi to the coastal zone of Bangladesh. But it appears that leaks are beginning to spring in the CBNRM foundation. No longer considered to be a panacea to natural resource management, many are beginning to recognize the weaknesses and limitations of the approach.
A new film spotlights a research project that demonstrates how the ‘big win’ is actually the result of the convergence of many small interventions. The project improved inland fisheries in Bangladesh from a number of angles that acknowledged the prevailing social system, market and ecosystem dynamics.
The recommendations outlined in this post were shared with India's Finance Minister during pre-budget consultations. The budget speech earmarked ~ USD 67 million for a new scheme to promote solar-power driven agricultural pumps. How the scheme will be implemented will be clear in the coming days.
Participants at the Global Landscapes Forum discussed ways to make “climate-smart” agricultural development more attractive to investors and policy makers - highlighting an example of IWMI research influencing investors in Nepal.
