Africa is rapidly developing, but this growth is uneven and has come at great cost to critical ecosystems and social stability. If African nations are going to reach their SDG targets by 2030 and their African Union Agenda by 2063, what has to change to ensure more ecologically sound, equitable development?
The Niger River Basin in arid West and Central Africa, home to more than 130 million people across nine countries, is in a buzz of development activity.
The Indus Basin is a system that supports a great number of people within and beyond its borders, but it is a system under considerable biophysical, social, economic and political stress. Planning for the future of this ever-changing, over-stretched system requires an open dialogue between scientists and policy makers.
The WLE Focal Regions (2014-2016) were an ambitious attempt to apply the fundamental underpinnings of WLE at scale: sustainable intensification of agriculture and substantive investment in gender.
While WLE researchers face a variety of challenges collecting data and meeting objectives across the Greater Mekong region, the stakes are arguably highest for the partners involved in the ‘Working together for a better Kachin landscape’ project in northern Myanmar. Here, armed conflict is still common and the threat of continued fighting makes the target of equitable development an imperative.
A recent research publication covering two similar catchments in upland Laos and upland Vietnam found a striking different hydrological situation in each place. What accounts for the difference, and what are the implications for forest management policy?
Acquatic biomonitoring is a powerful tool for assessing the health of river systems. On a recent trip to Myanmar, IWMI researchers explored the viability of biomonitoring for evaluating the health of the Ayeyarwady and Thanlwin rivers.
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?
With the current drought in Southeast Asia, downstream Mekong countries are concerned that their water is being held up by large mainstream dams in China and Laos. There are, however, hundreds of small dams on Mekong tributaries, and the cumulative effect of these cannot be ignored.
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.
Publicly accessible satellite data gives water accounting a boost with the ultimate goal of being able to give water managers precise indications of where and when water is being “used” and allow them to plan accordingly.
