Climate science has a large interest in ‘average weather’. There is an obsession with predicting larger climate trends: regional long-term patterns of rainfall, temperature peaks and averages. How this pans out locally in time and space in less understood.
Situated in the far east of Sudan, the Gash Die is where the ‘wild’ Gash River comes to a stop in a desert territory – a so-called inland Delta. Since the 1970's, the fortunes of Gash Die have been on a steep decline.
Agricultural intensification is commonly identified as one way to both address growing food security concerns and improve the income of smallholder farmers. However on a recent trip I took to Northern Ghana, I noticed that agricultural intensification could lead to adverse effects, affecting men and women in ways we perhaps haven’t yet considered.
A major report on water for food security and nutrition, launched on Friday by the high-level panel of experts on food security and nutrition, is the first comprehensive effort to bring together access to water, food security and nutrition. This report goes far beyond the usual focus on water for agriculture.
What are we to make of the proliferation of water funds around the world? Now there’s a question. Would they still be growing in number if they weren’t delivering tangible impacts? Many interventions lack fundamental scientific principles to support them, so the answer in some cases may well be yes. Which is why it is vital that they get the science right.
When experts in large-scale irrigation systems hear the phrase ‘ecosystem services based approach’, their responses represent an array of contrasting perspectives on what is - or should be - an environmental service perspective and how it can be used. Two researchers react to ‘ecosystem services based approach’.
Has anyone considered the relationship between the stubbornly high malnutrition in Laos and the increasing workloads of women in agriculture? A recent World Bank report ignored this question, while other projects are assuming that nutrition can be solved by boosting the numbers of trainings and home gardens.
What are we to make of the proliferation of water funds round the world dedicated to maintaining the watersheds that keep rivers flowing, aquifers charged and taps full? Should we embrace the engagement of some of the world’s most famous water guzzlers?
When a savings and credit trainer had explained to a farmer that if he saved $1 per month for the last 30 years he would have more than $360, the farmer was impressed about the amount of savings he lost and raised a surprising question: where were you.
Development practitioners are faced with a conundrum: how to measure results, and satisfy donors’ and funders’ demand for impact reporting, when the typical three-year development project has long expired by the time impacts emerge?
With so much great literature on ecosystem services these two months, here is the second part to our Science on the pulse series for February and March.
It’s been a busy time for ecosystem services these two months! With so much good literature to share, there will be two Science on the Pulse posts this week.
