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Ait Kadi, Mohammad. Irrigation Water Pricing Policy in Morocco's Large Scale Irrigation Projects. Winrock Water Files. Click here to download this paper in Allen, Richard G. and James L. Wright. 2004. Evaporation Component of ET Estimated from Daily Lysimeter Measurement at Kimberly, Idaho. Winrock Water Files. Click here to download this paper in Allen, Richard G., et al. Revised FAO Procedures for Calculating Evapotranspiration - Irrigation and Drainage Paper No. 56 with Testing in Idaho. Winrock Water Files. Click here to download this paper in Allen, Richard. 2004. Impact of Irrigated Agriculture on Near Surface Humidity. Winrock Water Files. Click here to download this paper in Frederiksen, Harald. 2004. Practices and Procedures for Pricing Services. Click here to download this paper in Frederiksen, Harald. 2005. The Sardar Sarovar Project -India. Click here to download this paper paper in Howell, Terry A. Enhancing Water Use Efficiency in Irrigated Agriculture. Reprinted from Agronomy Journal. Vol. 93. No. 2. Winrock Water Files. Click here to download this paper in Howell, Terry A. Relationship Between Crop Production and Transpiration, Evapotranspiration, and Irrigation. Winrock Water Files. Click here to download this paper in Keller, Andrew and David Seckler. 2008. Transpiration: Constraints on Increasing the Productivity of Water in Crop Production. Click here to download this paper ( Keller, Jack. 2004. Irrigation Technologies for Small Holders. Click here to download this paper ( Perry, Chris. 2007. Efficient irrigation; inefficient communication; flawed recommendations. Published in Irrigation and Drainage (Volume 56, Issue 4, Pages 367–378) http:/ / www3.interscience.wiley.com/ cgi-bin/ abstract/ 114281744/ ABSTRACT Please click on the URL link. You will be redirected to the abstract on Wiley InterScience webpage. From there, you can open the article in PDF format. Perry, Chris. N/D. World Commission on Dams: Implications for Food and Irrigation. Click here to download this paper in Siebert, S., et al. 2005. Development and Validation of the Global Map of Irrigation Areas. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences. 9: 535-547. Click here to download this paper in Ward, Frank and Manuel Pulido-Velazquez. 2008. Water conservation in irrigation can increase water use. PNAS. Click here to download this paper paper in Water Scarcity Roundtable Discussion. 1993. Water Scarcity in Developing Countries: Reconciling Development and Environmental Protection. Proceedings from Roundtable Discussion. Arlington, VA: Winrock International. Click here to download this book (385k - You may also download sections of the book: Willardson, L.S., Allen, R.G., and Frederiksen, H.D. 1994. Universal Fractions and the Elimination of Irrigation Efficiencies. Paper presented at the 13th Technical Conference, USCID, Denver, Colorado, October 19-22, 1994. Click here to download this paper (
B. A. Stewart and Terry A. Howell (editors). 2003. Encyclopedia of Water Sciences. Dekker Publishing. http:/ / www.Dekker.com/ servlet/ product/ productid/ E-EWS This is a wonderful source for concise and up-to-date discussions of (and references to) major topics in the water sciences by leading authorities. The emphasis is on the water sciences related to agriculture. (DS) Cech, Thomas V. 2003. Principles of Water Resources History, Development, Management, and Policy. John Wiley and Sons This is an excellent introduction and overview to water resources. It is clearly written, it has many interesting pictures (e.g., a water wheel in Iraq, an elegant Roman aqueduct), and the conversion tables at the end are very useful. Most of the material is oriented to the USA, but there are lessons to be learned for other countries. Recommended to beginners and old hands alike. (DS) Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. 2007. Water for Food, Water for Life: A Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture. Gleick, Peter (editor). 2004. The World' Water: 2004-2005: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources. Island Press. Pacific Institute. http:/ / www.pacinst.org Grigg, Neil S. 1985. Water Resources Planning. McGraw-Hill, N.Y. A comprehensive text, widely used throughout the world. (DS) Kite, Geoff, ed. 1995. Time and The River. Water Resources Publications, LLC. This book shows the struggles of many of the great hydrologists with their fascinating subject. A great and instructive read. (DS) Postel, Sandra. 1999. Pillar of Sand: Can the Irrigation Miracle Last? W. W. Norton. Global Water Policy Project. http:/ / www.globalwaterpolicy.org/ publications.html The many works by Peter Gleick and Sandra Postel present important contributions to thinking about global water resources (and The World’s Water provides excellent data sets). (DS)
The following papers examine the basic concepts and various implications of the basin perspective. There naturally is some redundancy and some differences of emphasis among these authors. But it is so important to get these concepts right that reading different ways of expressing the same core ideas is well worth the effort. (DS) Clyma,W. and Shafique, M.S. 2001. Basin-Wide Water Management Concepts for the New Millennium. ASAE paper number 01-2051. American Society of Agricultural Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan, USA. This paper presents a critique of the newer concepts of “basin efficiency” and a defense of the older concepts of “classical efficiency” (see the review in Seckler, et. al. 2002, above). Jensen, M.E. 1967. Evaluating Irrigation Efficiency. Journal of the Irrigation and Drainage Division. Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers. This is the first and still one of the best papers on the newer concepts of irrigation efficiency. The following publication carries these concepts forward. (DS) Jensen, M.E., ed. 1980. Design and Operation of Farm Irrigation Systems. Monograph No. 3. American Society of Agricultural Engineers. St. Joseph, Michigan. One of the many important features of this book is a criticism of national water use assessments in the USA for neglecting return flows: the basin perspective (DS) Keller, A., Keller, J., and Seckler, D. 1996. Integrated Water Resource Systems: Theory and Policy Implications. Research Report 3. International Irrigation Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka. http:/ / www.iwmi.cgiar.org/ pubs/ pub003/ REPORT03.PDF Keller, A.A. and J. Keller. 1995. Effective Efficiency: A Water Use Efficiency Concept for Allocating Freshwater Resources. Discussion Paper 22, Center for Economic Policy Studies, Winrock International. Molden D., and R. Sakthivadivel, and J. Keller. 2001. Hydronomic Zones for Developing Basin Water Conservation Strategies. International Water Management Institute (IWMI) Research Report No. 56. One of the major problems in using basin efficiency is to determine what happens to water in a river basin. This and the following Three papers above set out the conceptual structure and a rapid appraisal methodology for doing that. (DS) Molden, D. J. 1997. Accounting for Water Use and Productivity. SWIM Paper No. 1, International Irrigation Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka. http:/ / www.iwmi.cgiar.org/ pubs/ SWIM/ SWIM01.PDF Molden, D.J. and Sakthivadivel, R. 1999. Water accounting to assess uses and productivity of water. Water Resources Development 15 (1 /2): 55-71. Perry, C. J. 1996. The IIMI Water Balance Framework: A Model for Project Level Analysis. Research Report 5. International Irrigation Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka. http:/ / www.iwmi.cgiar.org/ pubs/ pub005/ RR005.htm Perry, C. J. 1999. The IWMI Water Resources Paradigm: Definitions and Implications. Agricultural Water Management, 40(1): 45-50. Seckler, D., D. Molden and R. Sakhivadivel. 2002. The Concept of Efficiency in Water-resources Management and Policy. In J. W. Kijne, R. Barker and D. Molden, Water Productivity in Agriculture: Limits and Opportunities. CAB International, Wallingford, UK. http:/ / www.iwmi.cgiar.org/ pubs/ Book/ CA_CABI_Series/ Water_Productivity/ Protected/ 0851996698ch3.pdf This paper traces out the history and evolution of the new “basin”, concept of irrigation efficiency. It turns out, as usual, that is not so new. The question is how come it did not become accepted more quickly? And why is there such resistance to it even today? (DS) Seckler, David. 1996. The New Era of Water Resources Irrigation Management: From ‘Dry’ to ‘Wet’ Water Savings. Research Report No. 1. IWMI. http:/ / www.iwmi.cgiar.org/ pubs/ pub001/ RR001.htm Willardson, L.S., Allen, R.G., and Frederiksen, H.D. 1994. Universal Fractions and the Elimination of Irrigation Efficiencies. Paper presented at the 13th Technical Conference, USCID, Denver, Colorado, October 19-22, 1994. In this paper the authors contend that the concept of water use “efficiency has been so misused and is so misleading that it should never be used at all! The authors propose a system and nomenclature of water “fractions” to use instead. This paper is available in the Publications section above.
Alcamo, J., T. Henrichs, and T. Rosch. 1999. World water in 2025. Global Modeling and Scenario Analysis for the World Commission on Water for the 21st Century (Unpublished report) http:/ / www.usf.uni-kassel.de/ usf/ archiv/ dokumente/ kwws/ kwws.2.pdf Falkenmark, Malin, Jan Lundqvist, and Carl Widstrand. 1989. Macro-scale Water Scarcity Requires Micro-scale Approaches: Aspects of Vulnerability in Semi-arid Development. Natural Resources Forum. London: Butterworth. November 13 (4): 258-267. Following this pioneering study of global water supplies, which is based on per capita water resources among countries, the following three studies, based on more complex indicators (and listed in terms of dates) have emerged. Littleworth, A. and E. Garner. 1995. California Water. Solano Press Books, Point Arena, CA. This book provides an overview of the policy and legal framework for determining water rights and allocation, and legal implications to managing water, in California and the Western U.S. The book reviews the historic principals of conferring water rights through age-old court decisions and considers the effects on decision-making processes posed by the Endangered Species Act, and Clean Water Act, the public trust doctrine, and the Bay-Delta proceedings, litigation, water transfers, water conservation, and newly developing water management programs. Rosegrant, Mark W., X.Cai, and S.A. Cline. 2002. World Water and Food to 2025: Dealing with Scarcity. http:/ / www.ifpri.org/ pubs/ books/ water2025book.htm These are different studies, following different methodologies and reach somewhat different conclusions. The first two are on a country basis, a the last two combine country and river basin analysis. All the studies agree on one important fact: that much of the world, especially the LDCs, are facing increasingly severe water shortages in the near future. Seckler, David, U. Amarasinghe. D. Molden, R. de Silva, and R. Barker. 1999. World Water Demand and Supply, 1990 to 2025: Scenarios and Issues. Report 19. International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka. http:/ / www.iwmi.cgiar.org/ pubs/ PUB019/ RR019.htm Frederiksen, Harald D. 1992. Water Resources Institutions: Some Principles and Practices. World Bank Technical Paper 191. http:/ / tinyurl.com/ 4d2nr Excellent overview of the institutional framework required for managing water. (CP) Keller, Andrew, Sakthivadivel, R., and Seckler, D. 2000. Water Scarcity and the Role of Storage in Development. IWMI Research Report no. 39. IWMI. Morton, F. I .1995. Evaporation and Feedback Mechanisms in Hydrology. In Time and The River. Geoff Kite, ed. Water Resources Publications, LLC. A dissenting view of Penman-Monteith: fascinating and persuasive. (CP)
4a. History and General References Martin C. Melosi. 2000. The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. This is a fascinating, thoroughly referenced book about the evolution of water supply, sewerage, and solid waste disposal in the United States. One of the more important lessons for those unfamiliar with W&S service delivery concerns the development of sewer systems based on faulty understanding of the basis of contagious disease, and the persistence of this model through the post-WWII period. (JD) White, G., D. Bradley, and A. White. 1972. Drawers of Water. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. This is a classic in the W&S field that integrates engineering, economics, health, and sociology perspectives to explore domestic water supply in East Africa. Both urban and rural communities are included. The authors review the range of possible improvements over traditional water sources; their costs and benefits; and the successes and failures of standard economic and technical planning methods in developing country W&S services. WHO and UNICEF. Global Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment 2000 Report. Geneva: World Health Organization and UNICEF http:/ / www.who.int/ water_sanitation_health/ monitoring/ globalassess/ en/ A web-based resource that provides comprehensive information on coverage rates for improved water supply and sanitation at the national level as compiled by the WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme. Discussions of pressing challenges in expanding access; regional trends in coverage; and debates on how best to measure access to adequate services are also provided. (JD) World Bank. 1994. “Infrastructure: Achievements, Challenges, and Opportunities.” In World Development Report 1994: Infrastructure for Development. Washington, DC: The World Bank. The World Bank has consistently argued that infrastructure spurs economic development. In this report, empirical evidence regarding rates of return for different infrastructure investments, including water supply and sanitation, are compared; the potential economic benefits from improving W&S services are also discussed. (JD) 4b. Institutional and Managerial Issues Alliance to Save Energy. 2002. Watergy: Taking Advantage of Untapped Energy and Water Efficiency Opportunities in Municipal Water Systems. Washington, DC. http:/ / www.ase.org/ uploaded_files/ watergy/ watergyfull.pdf Baumann, D., J. Boland, and M. Hanemann, eds. 1998. Urban Water Demand Management and Planning. New York: McGraw-Hill. A useful resource for engineers, planners, or managers. Examines physical, financial, and political challenges facing water supply agencies; the history of urban water demands and why they change; methods for analyzing and managing demand; and strategies for integrating supply- and demand-side factors in planning. (JD) Davis, J., S. Tankha, A. Ghosh, P. Martin, T. Samad, B. Zia, and G. Prunier. In Search of Good Governance: Experiments from South Asia’s Water and Sanitation Sector. New Delhi: Water and Sanitation Program. Available by request from mailto:vmehra@worldbank.org In this study of four public W&S agencies in South Asia, the authors identify a number of strategies used to improve accountability, customer responsiveness, transparency, and extension of services to poor households. The paper challenges the prevailing ‘New Public Management’ themes of current policy advice to developing-country W&S agencies and offers alternative approaches to move out of the ‘low level equilibrium’ described by Spiller and others (see below). (JD) Dedrick, A. R. 2000. Special issue on the Management Improvement Program. (Editorial) Irrigation and Drainage Systems 14(1&2):1-166. WCL# 2192. Dedrick, A. R., E. Bautista, W. Clyma, D. B. Levine, S. A. Rish, and A. J. Clemmens. 2000. Diagnostic Analysis of the Maricopa-Stanfield Irrigation and Drainage District Area. Irrigation and Drainage Systems 14(1&2):41-67. WCL# 2170. http:/ / www.uswcl.ars.ag.gov/ pdf/ uswclpubs/ WCLPUB-2170-Dedrick.pdf Dedrick, Allen R., Eduardo Bautista, Wayne Clyma, David B. Levine, and Shirley A. Rish. 2000. The Management Improvement Program: a process for improving the performance of irrigated agriculture. Irrigation and Drainage Systems 14(1&2):5-39. WCL# 2167. McIntosh, A. and C. Yniquez. 1997. Second Water Utilities Data Book. Manila: Asian Development Bank. http:/ / www.adb.org/ Documents/ Books/ Second_Water_Utilities/ default.asp A number of recent efforts have been made to develop and standardize urban W&S utility performance indicators. This document by the ADB provides data on 30+ utilities in South and Southeast Asia. Additional efforts on benchmarking have been undertaken by the World Bank. A 1996 document on performance indicators can be downloaded from http://www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/water/pdf/indicators.pdf, and a web-based, global benchmarking project can be accessed at http://www.ib-net.org/wb/uom_bench.asp. (JD) Spiller, P., and W. Savedoff. 1999. Spilled Water: Institutional Commitment in the Provision of Water Services. Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank. This book draws on case studies from Latin America to elaborate a common paradigm in the W&S services sub-sector: the ‘low-level equilibrium.’ The authors illustrate how objectives unrelated to effective, efficient service delivery (e.g., patronage through employment) eventually create dysfunctional W&S agencies that are unable to cover their costs through user fees. Although the authors provide very few examples of effective strategies to get out of the low-level equilibrium, this book is useful for individuals with limited exposure to political economy issues in W&S service delivery. (JD) Zaroff, B., et al. 1984. Water Vending in Developing Countries. Aqua 5: 289-295. One of the first papers on the ‘other’ private-sector in W&S service delivery: small-scale, independent providers, or vendors. More recent work on this important segment of the W&S service sector has been undertaken by the Water & Sanitation Program. Their outputs are available online at http://www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/water/topics/ind_providers.html#pubs . (JD) Boland, J.J. & Whittington, D. 2000. The Political Economy of Water Tariff Design in Developing Countries: Increasing Block Tariffs Versus Uniform Price With Rebate. In: The Political Economy of Water Pricing Reforms. Ariel Dinar, ed. London: Oxford University Press. This is one of several references by these authors concerning the limitations of the increasing block tariff as a strategy to protect low-income households from high W&S bills. (JD) Davis, J., and D. Whittington. 2002. Challenges for Water Sector Reform in Transition Economies. Water Policy 6(4): 1-15. This paper warns that much of the literature advocating price reforms as the centerpiece for improving services and expanding coverage is inappropriate for transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe. The combination of large infrastructure stocks, declining household incomes, and unique technical challenges for metering render pricing tools of little use in these countries. (JD) McPhail, A. 1993. The ‘Five Percent Rule’ for Improved Water Service: Can Households Afford More? World Development 21(6): 963-973. This article challenges the notion that low-income households will not pay more than 5% of their monthly income toward W&S services. Dozens of other articles using the contingent valuation method were published in the 1990s which also suggested that poor households have higher effective demand for improved services than typically assumed by W&S planners and policy makers. Note that normative considerations, i.e., whether poor households should be required to pay more than X% for services, are generally not discussed by these researchers. (JD) Raftelis, G. 1993. Comprehensive Guide to Water and Wastewater Finance and Pricing (2nd edition). Boca Raton, FL: Lewis Publishers. A standard in U.S. W&S planning, this book covers alternative sources of financing for W&S infrastructure, as well as considerations in designing rate structures. (JD) 4d. Technology and Engineering Note for practitioners in developing countries: The Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC) at Loughborough University in the UK has a variety of short, practical publications focused on water supply and sanitation in developing countries. A few of these have been included below (with ITDG as the publisher); those interested in WEDC’s full catalog should visit http://wedc.lboro.ac.uk/publications/. Reed, R. 1995. Sustainable Sewerage: Guidelines for Community Schemes. London: ITDG. Skinner, Brian. 2003. Small-Scale Water Supply : A Review of Technologies. London: ITDG. Watson, Gabrielle. 1995. Good Sewers Cheap? Agency-Customer Interactions in Low-cost Urban Sanitation in Brazil. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Available free of charge from the World Bank Water Help Desk, at mailto:whelpdesk@worldbank.org Condominial sewerage was devised as a strategy for increasing access to sanitation services among lower-income communities. This paper reviews the innovations in both engineering and in planning, operations, and maintenance that condominial sewerage utilizes. 4e. Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Health Cairncross, S. 2003. Water Supply and Sanitation: Some Misconceptions. Tropical Medicine and International Health 8(3): 193–195. http:/ / www.blackwellsynergy.com/ links/ doi/ 10.1046/ j.1365-3156.2003.01027.x/ full In this short editorial, Cairncross critiques several popular ideas in W&S planning, among them the notion that water quality is a more important planning parameter than water quantity. Cairncross argues that most diarrhea is transmitted from person to person, not via water supply; if true, the implications for W&S planners and institutions are considerable. (JD) Esrey, S. A. 1996. “Waste, Water and Well-being: A Multicountry Study.” American Journal of Epidemiology 143(6): 608-623. An important (and still debated) contribution to knowledge regarding water, sanitation, and health. Esrey carried out a meta-analysis of work linking water supply and sanitation improvements to diarrhea incidence among children, and concluded that improved sanitation has consistent, positive association with better health, while the relationship between improved water supply and health is mixed. (JD) Howard, G. and J. Bartram. 2003. Domestic Water Quantity, Service Level and Health. Geneva: World Health Organization. http:/ / www.who.int/ water_sanitation_health/ diseases/ WSH03.02.pdf Rosenberg, C. 1987. The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. A short, very readable volume that describes the major cholera epidemics of the 19th century in New York City and the links between sanitary engineering and public health. (JD) Snow J. 1936. On the Mode of Communication of Cholera. The Commonwealth Fund. London: Oxford University Press. http:/ / www.ph.ucla.edu/ epi/ snow/ snowbook_a1.html The classic study which led to general acceptance of the hypothesis that cholera was a waterborne disease. (JD) 5a. Economic and Social Aspects of Irrigation Allan, T. 1998. Moving Water to Satisfy Uneven Global Needs: "Trading" Water as an Alternative to Engineering It. ICID Journal, 47(2):1-8. This paper is the classic statement of the”virtual water” thesis—or, in economics, international trade in terms of comparative advantage. The idea is that countries with plentiful water should export food to countries with water scaricity, and both will gain—and overall water productivity will increase substantially. (DS) Chambers, Robert. 1986. Irrigation Against Rural Poverty. Paper for INSA Seminar on water management, New Delhi. Still one of the best summaries of WHY irrigation is a good idea. (CP) Seckler, David, and R.K. Sampath. 1985. Production and Poverty in Indian Agriculture. Report to USAID Delhi. [Forthcoming in WW Reprints] An excellent empirical analysis of agricultural data to produce insightful and counter-intuitive results. The paper that got me interested in research! (CP) Zwartveen, Margreet. 1997. A Plot of One's Own: Gender Relations and Irrigated Land Allocation Policies in Burkina Faso. Research Report 10. International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka. http:/ / www.iwmi.cgiar.org/ pubs/ pub010/ RR010.htm In my opinion Margreet Zwartveen is the Virgina Woolf of gender and water—this paper is a worthy successor to A Room of Ones Own (DS 5b. Designing and Managing Irrigation Systems Ait Kadi, Mohamed. 2005. Irrigation Water Pricing Policy in Morocco's Large Scale Irrigation Projects. World Bank Seminar on the Political Economy of Water Pricing. This paper explores irrigation water pricing in Morocco's large scale irrigation projects. Albinson and C. J. Perry, Fundamentals of Smallholder Irrigation: The Structured System Approach. IWMI. Research Report No. 58. Berkoff, Jeremy. 1990. Irrigation Management in the Indo-Gangetic Plain. World Bank Technical Paper 129. The World Bank. An exceptionally insightful and well-argued piece on the importance of rainfall to how irrigation systems can be managed. (CP) Horst, Lucas. 1998. The Dilemmas of Water Division. IWMI. These two works summarize about a century of combined experience of two widely experienced practitioners. Essential reading -- if only to realize how little the issues have changed. (CP) IWMI. 2003. Irrigation Management Transfer: How to Make It Work for Africa’s Smallholders? IWMI Water Policy Briefing, Issue 11. http:/ / www.iwmi.cgiar.org/ waterpolicybriefing/ files/ wpb11.pdf This is the best statement of the issues involved in this difficult subject that I have seen, “brief” or not. (DS) Jones, William I. 1995. The World Bank and Irrigation. The World Bank. A comprehensive and balanced overview of almost 50 years Bank efforts to expand and improve irrigated agriculture. (CP) Jurriens, M., P. P. Molinga and P. Wester. 1996. Scarcity by Design: Protective Irrigation in India and Pakistan. Liquid Gold Paper 1, Wageningen. Another classic, with seminal insights into performance measurement and other non-technical issues. (CP) Levine, Gil. 1982. Relative Water Supply: An Explanatory Variable for Irrigation Systems. Cornell/Rutgers Project. Technical Report No 6. The Determinants of Irrigation Project: Problems in Developing Countries. The first performance indicator to be widely applied. (CP) Malhotra, S. P. 1982. The Warabandi System and Its Infrastructure. International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage. New Delhi. The first and still the best detailed description of the warabandi (rotation) system of North-West India and Eastern Pakistan. When properly managed, it is probably the best large-scale irrigation system in the world. (DS) Nan, L. 1992. Planning and Management of Irrigation Systems in Developing Countries. Agricultural Water Management Journal 22: 1-2. Rao, P. S. 1993. Review of Selected Literature on Indicators of Irrigation Performance. International Irrigation Management Institute.. The most comprehensive review of the various proposals to measure performance: interesting to see how few had been applied in more than one location. (CP) 5c. Increasing Water Productivity: Plant-Water Relationships The potential for increasing water productivity in agricultural fundamentally depends on what I like to call TED—transpiration, evaporation and drainage. This section provides a guide to the fascinating field of TED, and we hope to have a concept paper and forum discussion on it in the near future.(DS) Allen, R.G., L.S. Pereira, D. Raes, and M. Smith. 1998. Crop Evaporation: Guidelines for Computing Crop Water Requirements. FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper 56. Rome. This is the reference work on computing crop water requirements. No one who is interested in water use in agriculture, or water generally should neglect this important work. (DS) Bennett, J. 2003. Opportunities for Increasing Water Productivity of CGIAR Crops through Plant Breeding and Molecular Biology. In Water Productivity in Agriculture: Limits and Opportunities, Kijne, J. W., R. Barker and D. Molden, eds. CAB International, Wallingford, UK. This chapter provides an excellent overview and assessment of the potential of crop-breeding for increasing water productivity in a highly readable manner. (DS) Burt, C.M., D.J. Howes, and A. Mutziger, Evaporation Estimates for Irrigated Agriculture in California, presented at the 2001 Irrigation Association Conference, San Antonio, Texas, November 4-6, 2001. http:/ / www.itrc.org/ papers/ EvaporationEstimates/ EvaporationEstimates.pdf This paper explores the evaporation losses associated with different types of irrigation systems—conventional furrow, sprinkler, drip, basin, etc. The surprising conclusion is that under reasonable management they are all about the same! The one exception is buried drip systems, which loses about 10% less water to evaporation than the others. Since evaporation loss is the one truly non-benificial loss of water in irrigation, this is an extremely important finding and totally against conventional wisdom. (DS) Ehlers, W. and M. Goss. 2003. Water Dynamics in Plant Production. CABI Publishing, Cambridge, U.S.A. The extended paper by Howell and the book by Ehlers and Goss provide an excellent overview of evapotranspiration in relation to plant productivity. The 2003 date of the book enables the reader to clearly see the most recent state of the art. (DS) Howell, T.A. 1990. Relationships Between Crop Production and Transpiration, Evapotranspiration, and Irrigation. Irrigation of Agricultural Crops. Agronomy Monograph No. 30. Keller, Andrew and David Seckler. 2008. Transpiration: Constraints on Increasing the Productivity of Water in Crop Production. Click here to download this paper ( Kijne, J.W., R. Barker and D. Molden. 2003. Water Productivity in Agriculture: Limits and Opportunities for Improvement. CABI International, Wallingford, UK. This book provides an excellent introduction and overview of the present state of thought on this important subject. (DS) Sinclair, T.R. and F.P. Gardner. 1998. Environmental Limits to Plant Production. In Principles of Ecology in Plant Production. CAB International. Sinclair, T.R. and J.M. Bennet. 1998. Principles of Ecology in Plant Production. CAB International, Wallingford, UK. Tanner, C.B. and T.R. Sinclair. 1983. Efficient Water Use in Crop Production: Research or Re-search? In Limitations to Efficient Water Use in Crop Production, Taylor, H.M., Jordan, W.R., and Sinclair, T.R., eds. American Society of Agronomy, Madison. These three publications involving T.R. Sinclair provide wonderful insights into plant water relationships of great practical usefulness. The last one, by Tanner and Sinclair, has rightly been described as “the seminal paper in the field.” This paper also includes, in the last section, an excellent discussion of the huge gains in water productivity that can be achieved by moving crop production to the water, within and between countries (agroclimatic zones)—or what is now called “virtual water” (see the reference to Allan, T. in this section). (DS) Sinclair, T.R., Larry C. Purcell, and Clay H. Sneller. February 2004. Crop Transformation and the Challenge to Increase Yield Potential. In Trends in Plant Science.Volume 9, pages 70-75. This recent paper is an important part of the ongoing debate over the potential for increasing water productivity, especially transpiration efficiency, through more efficient plants. The paper and the references provide an excellent update on the state of the debate. (DS) (10/13/05)
Rockstrom, John, Jennie Baron and Patrick Fox. 2003. Water Productivity in Rain-fed Agriculture: IWMI. 2002. Innovations in Groundwater Recharge, Water Policy Briefing. This is an exceptionally interesting and important study of a large and successful project in India to recharge aquifers through “excessive” irrigation of paddy (rice) fields. (DS) Seckler, David. 2003. A Concept Note on Groundwater Recharge. [Winrock Water: Concept Papers]. (Also see the entries under “4c. Pricing” in Urban Water Supply and Sanitation above.) Dinar A. 1991. Agricultural Water Marketing, Allocative Efficiency. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. 20: 210-223. A classic -- but interesting to compare with the real world views of Shannan and Horst (In Water Resource and Irrigation Systems, above). (CP) Dinar, Ariel, ed. 2000. The Political Economy of Water Pricing Reforms. Oxford University Press. Perry, C. J. 1996. Alternative Approaches to Cost Sharing for Water Services to Agriculture in Egypt., Research Report 2. International Irrigation Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Perry, C. J., D. Seckler, and M. Rock. 1997. Water as an Economic Good: A Solution or a Problem?, Research Report 14. International Irrigation Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka. http:/ / www.iwmi.cgiar.org/ pubs/ PUB014/ RR014.htm These two papers discuss the theoretical and practical aspects of pricing water in developing countries. The general conclusion is that with many small farmers and deficient information and control structures it is not a viable option. This is not to deny, however, that some degree of cost recovery by different means, such as irrigated land taxes, is both feasible and desirable. (DS) 5g. Irrigation for Small Farmers Over the past decade or so, two exciting new irrigation technologies for small farmers have come to fruition. These are the treadle pump, for lifting water, and inexpensive drip irrigation systems, for applying it. These technologies have proven themselves capable of dramatically increasing the income of small farmers under the appropriate conditions. Keller, J., Keller, A. A. 2003. Affordable Drip Irrigation Systems for Small Farms in Developing Countries. Proceedings of the Irrigation Association Annual Meeting in San Diego CA, 18-20 November 2003. Irrigation Association. Falls Church, Virginia, USA. Postel, Sandra, P. Polak, F. Gonzales, and J. Keller. 2001. Drip Irrigation for Small Farmers: A New Initiative to Alleviate Hunger and Poverty. Water International, Volume 26, Number 1, p 3-13. International Water Resources Association Shah, Tushaar, Alam, M., Kumar, D., Nagar, R. K., and Singh, M. 2000. Pedaling Out of Poverty: Social Impact of a Manual Irrigation Technology in South Asia. Research Report 45. International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka. IWMI, IRC, and Global Water Partnership. 2006. Taking a Multiple-Use Approach to Meeting the Water Needs of Poor Communities Brings Multiple Benefits. IWMI Water Policy Briefing, Issue 18, Colombo, Sri Lanka. http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/waterpolicybriefing/files/wpb18.pdf Meinzen-Dick, Ruth and W. Van Der Hoek. 2001. Multiple Uses of Water in Irrigated Areas. Irrigation and Drainage Systems. 15: 93-98. Moriarty, Patrick, et al. 2004. Beyond Basics: Case Studies on Poverty and Productive Uses of Water at the Household Level. Technical Paper Series, No. 41. Copyright © 2004-2008 Winrock International. All Rights Reserved. |
